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Y15K Final Distribution

12/22/2021

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Y15K Fund Drive Distributes Final Gifts

A Message to Our Membership
Picture
Last year's Y15K "Understand the Need" Initiative and fund drive inspired PACG members to donate to support various non-profits that were providing support to individuals and families hit especially hard by the pandemic.

One group benefitting from our members' generosity was the residents of Cobblestone Place, which provides affordable subsidized housing for people with low income. In addition to purchasing outdoor seating and a large dining table for residents to share community meals, PACG raised enough to give a $120 HyVee gift card to each of the 23 households at Cobblestone Place. PACG decided to gift the cards at this time, when need is greatest. We also had enough funds to purchase 5 rolls of bus tokens, which will be distributed by the property manager to residents in need of such.

Cobblestone Place also offers extremely affordable office space to various non-profits, including Progressive Action for the Common Good. Once the pandemic subsides, we will again hold meetings in their public meeting room.

Other organizations that benefitted from our Y15K drive: Catalyst Kitchen, Heart of Hope, and QC Alliance for Immigrants and Refugees. Remind yourself of this good work by rereading our Blog post here.

PACG is proud that our members rallied and donated to support the common good.

Julie Ross
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Y15K Funds Distributed to Cobblestone

9/26/2020

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Y15K Funds Distributed to Cobblestone Place 
Saturday, September 26, 2020

A Message from the President

On Saturday, September 26th the last of our Y15K Initiative Funds were delivered to Cobblestone Place in a very small ceremony. PACG has rented office space in this affordable housing building in downtown Davenport for a number of years, and we often have meetings, parties and events in their public area.

I spoke briefly about our Y15K Initiative, Alta Price spoke about the founding of PACG and our issue forum model, and then we made the presentation.

Juanita Eucker and Diane Wolak received our check and explained that the funds will be used for a bench outside as well as furniture for the common space inside the building.

Cheryl Bruce from Bruce's Furniture in Davenport was also on hand. Her store is going to supply Cobblestone with furnishings. 

Funds will also be used to purchase MetroLINK passes and HyVee gift cards for residents. Alta surprised Juanita and Diane with a donation of high quality masks for all employees and residents. "We at Progressive Action take the pandemic very seriously and we encourage people to always wear masks in public," stated Dr. Price.

​Here are some of the images we took today of this event.

Allison Ambrose


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Y15K Fully Funded and First Funds Distribution

9/20/2020

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Y15K Funds - First Distribution
Saturday, September 12th

We are proud to announce that our community raised $12,500 for our Y15K Initiative fundraiser to provide assistance to people in our community who have been harmed by the economic downturn due to the pandemic. With the $7500 that the Board of Directors allocated for this purpose, we will be giving away $20,000 to those in need.

This initiative was started to give back to our community as a way to celebrate our 15th Anniversary as an organization. The plan was to give $15,000 in our 15th year. We are deeply grateful for your generosity, and are honored to have your trust for these distributions.


On Saturday, September 12th we had the first of two Y15K Funds distribution events. We did this live,  with a limited number of participants who were appropriately masked. 

​Watch our presentation of Y15K funds to Catalyst Kitchen, QCAIR and Heart of Hope here. 
​
Our Understand the Need Blog explains in detail what each of our recipient organizations plan to do with these funds.
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Y15K Initiative Fully Funded!

9/8/2020

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Y15K Initiative Fully Funded!

Message from the President

We are excited to announce that our Y15K fundraiser honoring our 15th Anniversary has achieved its goal! We will have more details about our success in next week's WEU. Thank you all for your continued support as we work for the common good of all in the Quad Cities!

Allison Ambrose
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Message from the President - Y15K "Understand the Need"

8/20/2020

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A Message from the President

Y15K Initiative Fundraiser

Dear Progressives,

I was happy to see many of you "attend" our Understand the Need  webinars, which presented the various ways we plan to use your Y15K donations! If you missed the webinars, you can view it on our website here.

Please consider donating to this initiative from the link below or on our website. In the upcoming weeks I hope to keep you updated on our progress toward achieving our goal of $7,500 raised. The Board will match funds so that we can donate 15K in honor of Y15 (PACG's 15th Anniversary)!

Allison Ambrose
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An Urgent Message from the President Regarding USPS Deliveries

8/18/2020

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Y15K Donations - USPS Delivery Issues ​

An Urgent Message from the President

Due to the COVID pandemic we have shut down the PACG office and are working remotely. We made the decision to forward PACG mail to the home of one of our Board members.

We have recently been made aware that some Y15K donations are being returned-to-sender as undeliverable mail. Should this happen to you, please contact office manager Julie Ross at 563-676-7580, 563-508-2209 or pacgoffice@gmail.com. 

If you did not put a return address on the envelope provided, please check your bank account to see if your check has cleared. You can also contact Julie to confirm whether or not we received your donation. 

Once your donation is logged into our accounting software a thank you note is automatically sent to you via email. Check your email. If you donated more ten days ago and have not received a thank you email from us, your check may be lost.

We have now requested a discontinuation of the forwarding of our PACG mail and will go in to physically collect it once or twice a week. This transition may take until the end of August.

Remember that you may also donate to PACG online by clicking here. 

We are very grateful for your donations that will allow us to do good work in our community during this difficult time.

Allison Ambrose
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View Our "Understand the Need" Webinar for the Y15K Initiative

8/8/2020

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Y15K Initiative - Understand the Need  Webinar Available for Viewing

Donate to Y15K
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​A Message from the Board

To help you learn more about the Y15K Initiative, we recently hosted two Understand the Need Zoom webinars where representatives from each group we plan to assist explained how they function to benefit our community and why they are in additional need today. Our webinar is available for viewing on our PACG YouTube channel here.

Here are more details about the organizations that we have chosen to support:  


QCAIR - Quad Cities Alliance for Immigrants and Refugees
Grant Curtis, President

1. QCAIR helps immigrants and refugees become strong, productive members of the Quad City community. We do this in one of two ways: providing direct assistance or referring to other agencies as appropriate and educating the Quad City Community on the talents, skills and abilities immigrants and refugees bring to our community. We pledge to uphold the following core values which provide us with the purpose and direction for our work: Quality – Collaboration – Advocacy – Integration - Respect.

2. The donated funds will provide cash assistance to low-income immigrants and refugees in Iowa who have not received relief from the federal government and have suffered adverse impacts as a result of the Covid-19 virus. The Illinois state government has given assistance to immigrants in their state, but Iowa has not. 
​
3. To learn more about QCAIR Inc., donate  or volunteer, please visit our Facebook page QuadCityAllianceforImmigrantsandRefugees or our website www.qcair.org.


Heart of Hope
Lynda Sargent, Founder and President

1. Heart of Hope is a ministry of Hope and Healing to the Hurting, dedicated to serving the community of Rock Island and the greater Quad City area. Our vision is to revitalize Rock Island neighborhoods, provide opportunities that empower individuals to become self-sufficient, and equip future generations for success. 

2. Heart of Hope is a nonprofit outreach organization solely dependent on contributions from individuals and from grant funding sources. We do not receive any state or federal funding. We are able to provide outreach-based services to those in need within our community because of the generosity of caring individuals who are able and willing to help us be the hands and feet to those in need within our neighborhoods. 19.8% of the residents in the City of Rock Island live below the national poverty rate. 38% of these  residents are children under the age of 6. Another 38% are residents over the age of 60. Heart of Hope has provided food and toiletry items for over 44,000 of these residents since opening our food pantry on May 1, 2014. We have distributed over 115,000 pounds of food in 2020. We continue to see the need for food escalate. Our records show a 40% increase in food pantry visitors between June and July of this year. We had 359 visitors to our pantry in June and 504 visitors in July! 

The funds we receive as part of the Y15K Initiative will mean we will be able to continue to meet this great need for food assistance within our communities. A second imminent need is the replacement of our 19-year-old, 15-passenger van for picking up the 3,000 to 5,000 pounds of food we distribute weekly. Funds would be used for both of these great needs. 

3. Heart of Hope website is HOHQC | Hope & Healing | Community Service | Quad Cities.



Palomares Social Justice Center and Catalyst Kitchen  
Melissa Freidhof-Rodgers

The Palomares Social Justice Center exists to help address the socio-economic needs and interests of the Floreciente neighborhood and other less empowered communities through advocacy, grassroots outreach, and culturally sensitive services:
  • Collaboration and Inclusiveness
  • People to People Empowerment
  • Cultural Awareness and Diversity
  • Equity
  • Creativity (supporting a space for critical thinking and activity)
  • Advocacy

Catalyst Kitchen Information:

1. The Palomares-St. John’s Catalyst Kitchen is a commercial kitchen located at St. John's Lutheran Church that neighbors can rent from the Palomares Social Justice Center. The kitchen can be rented by the hour and is an initiative to motivate our community to start a business and obtain official certification for the handling and selling of food.  This space helps launch budding entrepreneurs in taking the first steps in starting their business. Brick and mortar spaces require large amounts of funding and the Catalyst Kitchen provides a space to start a food business for a reasonable cost, while providing ongoing bilingual support and mentorship. Additionally, we provide individuals with the opportunity to obtain information on the certification process (in Spanish and English), starting a business, and general information on how to cook safely following sanitation codes. 

2. The funds from PACG will be used to help immigrant entrepreneurs pay for the ServSafe Food manager class and the required textbook, giving them a needed boost in taking the first step in starting a food business. With the Covid-19 pandemic we have had more immigrants wanting to start food businesses after losing their jobs and not qualifying for government assistance due to immigration status. This class is offered in Spanish and creates equal access needed to start a business. Funds may also be used to rent the kitchen for new business owners or to purchase small equipment. 

3. Connect with Catalyst Kitchen on our Facebook page. Information about the Palomares Social Justice Center can be found at their website.


Cobblestone Place
Allison Ambrose, PACG President


Cobblestone is a 28-unit affordable housing building in downtown Davenport, IA. The PACG office is located there; and, we hold many of our meetings and events in community rooms in the facility. Since management has always treated us so well, we decided to offer to help the people who live at Cobblestone. We asked residents what their needs were, and the Y15K funds will help fulfill those requests. Money will provide a park bench for  the outdoor yard, a dining set for the community kitchen that the smaller units use, and bus passes for residents. We are pleased that we can be "good neighbors" to those that live at Cobblestone.



​View our PACG  Understand the Need Webinar here.


Allison Ambrose, President
​
Donate to Y15K
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What You Can Do Now - Save the Date for Y15K

7/17/2020

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Save The Date!
Y15K via Zoom
Tuesday, August 4th at 5:30 pm and 
Saturday, August 8th at 10:00 am

A Message from the Board 

We will be holding  two Zoom presentations to reveal our plans for PACG's 15th Anniversary celebration! Presentations will be held on both August 4th
at 5:30 pm and August 8th at 10:00 am. Choose whichever meeting best fits your schedule!

More  details coming next week!

Allison Ambrose
1 Comment

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 Progressive Action for the Common Good (PACG)
 1212 W. 3rd St, Suite 3D, Davenport IA  52802    
 (563) 676-7580      
​ qcprogressiveaction@gmail.com                                                                                                                                      © 2023 Progressive Action for the Common Good