HAPPY NEW YEAR!

I hope everyone is doing well into the new year.
It's been a few months since the last update, because I was not able to get on the blog to make updates. Thanks to Robert Croissant- board member, I am able to be get back in to share the latest going on's with Trey's Transition.

With that being said.

Please continue to pray for health, wisdom, and courage to make this life special for us all.
Congrats to Milton Kimpson and Family on the birth of their baby boy!

We're now officially a Non-profit organization!! With the help of board members and Mr. Mink- agent from the IRS to update information to the application. We became a 501 C 3 organization in December '09. We've only had a few board meetings during the end of the year to begin the next building block of making the Young Adult program a reality. We talked about fundraising opportunities to raise the funds. A report from the grant writers indicate that grantors are stretched to give funds because of the slow economic conditions. Some grantors are only giving to existing programs. So our efforts to earn funds will truly be a grassroots effort. Our grant writers are eager to engage. There is hope as long as you believe that hope exists.
There are a few local business' that are able to help out and I've made application to Sam's Wholesale and Wal-Mart to assist with funding our efforts for they Fish Fry we're planning for next month.
We hope as a board to firm up the plans for the event his week during our board meeting on January 28, at the Richland County Public Library- Bank of America conference room.

Several members have submitted ideas for the fundraising campaign. The ideas include the following:

Creating a campaign summary that promotes the fundraising effort, gives an example of what the effort is for and how the donor can make their contribution to us. I've spoken with the Bank Manager, Marggie Mitchell and Gale Rabon at the St. Andrews Road location in Columbia SC how donors can make their contributions to any Bank of America location. The donor will need to indicate making the donation to the "James D. Irby III, Contribution Account". It's that simple.

A suggestion was made to have contribution jars placed at stores in the community, flyers, and business cards to generate funds and get the word out about our efforts for the young adult program. We plan to firm up that effort at the board meeting.

We're still on the timetable for Trey's Transition to open sometime this summer.
There are several persons that I've met over the last few months that are interested in the development of our program. One young lady , Beth was a student Dutchfork High School, worked as a volunteer in Ms. Essie Ford's class. She lost her job recently from the Babcock Center- (downsizing).

Changes in medicaid funding to caregivers have also affected how services are delivered.
Therapy, and Personal Care Aide services have been cut or reduced. Which has effected the quality of care and performance to our population.

She, like so many others in our community are eager to work and don't have a place to help others. I hope that our efforts will soon help to employ those from the community interested in helping others with special needs. I also hope this effort will stimulate the economy in many ways. We will be providing a number of services e.g transportation, catering, thearpy to assist the young adults to get to and from the program.

PLEASE encourage others to support our efforts. If you or anyone has questions about our efforts, call me at 803-732-5734 or email me @ james_irby2000@yahoo.com


Thank you for your help.


James Irby