A MESSAGE FROM VIP 12
We, the Compassionate Crusaders of Philadelphia’s Next Level Trainings 12th leadership class, eagerly accepted the invitation to make a lasting impact through a large scale community service project. To accomplish this, we proudly chose to support Chester County Futures (CCF). The Compassionate Crusaders declared that we would raise an amazing $62,000 for CCF in just 22 days!
Shouldn’t every child have the opportunity for a better life regardless of what socioeconomic status they were born into? Chester County Futures is dedicated to being the catalyst in young lives by providing comprehensive academic support, mentoring, and scholarships for motivated economically disadvantaged youth to succeed in school, higher education and life. Chester County Futures provides a breadth of services including monthly meetings for students, enrichment camps, college and career expo, family engagement, after-school academic enrichment classes, real-world learning opportunities and increased access to technology.
Chester County Futures serves nearly 500 economically disadvantaged students with programming they need to complete their education at the college of their choice. Their curriculum builds essential 21st Century financial literacy and academic skills through their weekly after school sessions and experiential STEM activities. Their four-year college graduation rate is five times the national average for low-income students.
All of their students come from homes with household incomes below the national poverty guidelines, 85% will be the first in the family to attend college. Their approach equips them to compete with their peers, leveling the playing field in the classroom and ultimately in the workplace. Their students gain a life they dream of, a life empowered by education.
We, the 12th leadership class of Next Level Trainings, have been working passionately to support Chester County Futures in providing transformational services to some of the most vulnerable in the Chester County community. These children may not choose where they started, but with the help from our families, friends, coworkers and business leaders, they get to choose where they are going. Together, we have committed to supporting these worthy kids and to ignite the transformation in communities all over the world.
As part of our Next Level Trainings’ curriculum, our vision was to bring unity, empowerment, and compassion while creating a large-scale community service project for Chester County Futures. We took a stand for the economically disadvantaged youth of Chester County and committed to raising $62,000, collecting 500 tangible goods, and providing 1,500 hours of volunteer support.
We have been very excited to support the life-changing work of Chester County Futures in creating an opportunity to lead a better life for disadvantaged children.
As we learned more about this foundation, we had the opportunity to meet with Chester County Futures Executive Director, Maria McDonald. Her excitement was contagious and quickly overflowed into the Compassionate Crusaders. We found that Chester County Futures and Next Level Trainings have a similar mindset for transforming lives. We took this excitement and shared vision, turning it into a bold declaration to support Chester County Futures by spreading love, joy, and connection throughout our community.
With a team of only 30 individuals, we confidently declared to raise $62,000 in just 22 days. As we concentrated our fundraising efforts, our thoughts returned regularly to the scholars whose lives we would be impacting by providing the much needed resources! We reached out to our families, our friends, our coworkers, and business leaders to support our cause and the CCF scholars. Using love, joy, and connection as our guiding beliefs, we reached out to our connections with personal phone calls. We learned that nothing moves people to action more than a committed and authentic conversation.
Many of the Compassionate Crusaders reached out through social media in ways they had never tried before. We gained confidence and skill in sending emails and texts, using Facebook Messenger and other social medias. Some of us even fund raised on the streets in the chilly weather! We learned from each other, what worked and what did not work, and used that information to further our goal. From sharing these ideas, we built on one another’s successes and gained momentum. Leaders from previous VIP teams were also a source of motivation, they inspired us through videos where they shared their energy and helpful tips helping us find the way to success.
A few team members held special events, putting together a list of tangible goods to collect for CCF. The list varied from office furniture, educational material, supplies, and snacks for the children during their after school program. With donations from local businesses, we were able to gather these items rather quickly.
A treasure chest was created which contained the message of “Take what you need, leave what you can” and was filled with notes. The meaning behind the chest is that can you place a note or words of affirmation inside the chest when you have something to give and when you feel as though you have nothing to give, you take a letter word or object that refills your cup. Maria has decided to implement that every student that enters their building will be required to either give or take from the chest.
This campaign was almost completely started from the ground up, and founded on the personal connections of each team member. This included brand new connections from team members reaching out to businesses and corporations. In the end, it all came back to personal conversations. The Compassionate Crusaders continued to call, post, text, and call again. Once this remarkable team hit our goal of $62,000, of course, we could not stop there! We again turned our hearts to the children of CCF, and with them in our minds, we continued to extend our efforts forward throughout the rest of the week.
This journey allowed us to make a difference in the lives of so many children!
We were able to raise a total of $82,097!! Our support of these young leaders will create a ripple effect of change and possibility, and VIP 12 to leave a legacy with impacts for years to come.