LSSN's Fall Highlights: Changing Lives One Story at a Time
Martin Malmberg, Director of Development and Communications at Lutheran Social Services of Nevada, writes:
I hope you and your loved ones have been having a fantastic fall! We here at LSSN have been extremely productive as we jump into every opportunity to serve people in need. We recently served 520 children during our Back to School Drive, collected TONS of peanut butter for Peanut Butter Wars, relaunched our Digimart allowing client choice in the pantry, and are starting one more satellite pantry location in North Las Vegas with the help of Anthem! Here are four quick stories of people that we have recently served:
One middle-aged man came in for grocery assistance and we also helped him get a birth certificate. During the process we found out that he had been out of work for more than five months and was right on the edge of homelessness. We got him an appointment with one of our Employment Navigators and within two weeks he had a job as a delivery driver with Amazon. Things are looking up!
A senior was let go from his pizza delivery driver position at Papa Johns in February after the Super Bowl. He struggled to get another position. We worked with him and through a Senior Community Employment program were able to get him a job right away.
Our SNAP Education Coordinator goes to local senior centers to teach Cooking Matters and Bingocize classes. The seniors have loved her elastic band workouts so much that some are now purchasing their own elastic bands to do their own independent workouts.
One of our LSSN Ambassadors that works with Operation Home had a young woman referred to us with five children and one more on the way. Finding a place that would suit their needs proved to be a difficult task. Fortunately, it was not long before the Ambassador received a phone call from a property owner asking if we had any families that needed housing. They responded yes and the application was emailed to the client. After being approved the family was able to move in right away. The mom had her baby two weeks after moving into their new home. We were so happy to see a family of this size off the streets.