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Newsroom
Welcome to the Child & Family Services of Eastern Virginia
newsroom, where you will find our most recent news. Should you need
assistance in covering a story about our organization, or news
related to children and families in need, please let us know.
Contact Dia DuVernet at 757-622-7017
ext. 135.
Funding allows FAST to Flourish
CFSEV recently received three new grants to support our
FAST (Families And Schools Together) program in Portsmouth. The
Beazley Foundation, the Portsmouth Community Foundation, and the
Portsmouth General Hospital Foundation contributed a total of
$65,000 for program continuation and expansion. FAST is a
collaborative prevention and parent involvement program designed to
build relationships and protective factors that address a number of
problems including: school failure, alcohol and drug abuse,
violence, delinquency, and child abuse and neglect. The FAST program
has been recognized by the Office of Juvenile Justice and
Delinquency Prevention, US Department of Justice as having achieved
Exemplary status, which is the highest rating in the OJJDP. Numerous
independent studies have shown FAST to be effective at increasing
academic and social competence, reducing special education
referrals, reducing child aggression and anxiety, and improving
family adaptability and social networks. Thank you to these
organizations for their generous support.
Technology Grant Will Improve the CFSEV Experience
Thanks to a $19,800 technology grant from the Beazley Foundation,
both employees and clients of CFSEV will enjoy a more streamlined
experience in the near future. This grant and the technology it will
buy will allow us to more efficiently serve our growing client base.
Healthy Families Funded
Portsmouth’s
Healthy Families program will continue thanks to a new $68,000
grant from the Portsmouth General Hospital Foundation. Healthy
Families is a national model program that provides home-visiting
services to over-burdened families. The program’s goals are: to
improve pregnancy outcomes and child health, to promote positive
parenting, to promote child development, and to prevent child abuse
and neglect. Empirical research shows that families enrolled in the
program are healthier, have healthier babies, have better
developmental outcomes, and have reduced risk of child maltreatment.
Thanks to the Portsmouth General Hospital Foundation, Portsmouth’s
most at-risk families will have a better chance.
S.L. Nusbaum and Friends Grant Christmas Wishes for our Neediest
Clients
During the holidays, everyone is surrounded by family, friends,
and presents! It is the season for giving. So, when the employees at
S.L. Nusbaum Realty Co. heard that there would be children in the
Tidewater area without Christmas, it broke our hearts. For the last
two years, S.L. Nusbaum Realty employees have come together to
support at-risk children in the CFSEV In-Home program. Before the
holiday shopping season starts, we get the children’s wish lists
from CFSEV and send them out to Nusbaum employees. The employees
respond either by shopping for a selected child, or by financially
sponsoring the project. A few of Santa’s elves do the shopping and
wrapping for the rest of the children on the list. This year, since
the In-Home program had grown so much, S.L. Nusbaum alone could not
cover all the children. So, the partners asked outside business
associates for their financial support to ensure that all the
children in the program would have a Christmas wish come true. The
best blessing of all came with the news that all the children in the
program would have their wishes granted this holiday season. Our
wish for the New Year is that the same blessing is created next
year.
-Rachel Clement, Executive Administrative Assistant, S.L. Nusbaum
Food Lion and Child & Family Services Make a Great
Community Team
 During
November, Food Lion on Portsmouth Blvd. Portsmouth, and Child &
Family Services employees partnered to give 50 families a great
Thanksgiving! The employees of Child and Family Services contributed
their own money to provide Thanksgiving dinner for 60 of our Food
Bank participant families and Food Lion gave us the turkeys at a
very small fraction of their actual cost. How great is that!!!!
CFSEV has been running the Food Bank from our Airline Blvd. location
for several years. Although we are a USDA certified food
distribution center, we are not able to provide our Food Bank
families with meat items. This year, our employees decided to
contribute what we could to actually purchase turkeys for our Food
Bank families
One afternoon, very close to Thanksgiving, I went into the Food Lion
Store on Portsmouth Blvd. in Portsmouth. I explained our situation
to Arlene Dillard, Office Manager, and she was immediately very
gracious and helpful. After talking with Steve Brown, Food Lion
Marketing Manager at that location, they agreed to sell us 50
turkeys at a price significantly lower that the actual cost to Food
Lion. They said they were enthusiastic about helping us because our
employees were the ones who contributed their own money for the
purchase. We picked up our turkeys – a whole pick-up truck load – on
Tuesday morning and distributed them that day to USDA certified
recipients. Because Food Lion gave us the turkeys at such a low
price, we were able to also purchase vegetables and bread for our
families with the funds we had collected.
I can’t say enough kind things about Food Lion’s helpful employees:
Murray Riddick (Store manager), Arlene Dillard (Office manager), and
Steve Brown (Marketing manager). These folks were so gracious, very
willing to help, and concerned about their community! Food Lion and
our employees formed a partnership which shows that we actually can
pull together and help those in our own local community.
Even though Food Lion lost money on those turkeys, they gained our
respect and the gratitude of 50 families who, otherwise, would
certainly not have had such a wonderful meal on Thanksgiving.
Evelyn P. Howell
Vice President of Operations
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