SCCAP Thriving Connections

04/01/2025

Last Friday we had the honor of attending the Cox Scholars Symposium. There, attendees were able to get just a glimpse of the wonderful work our senior and freshman Advocate for Community Engagement students Emmy Mercer and Addison Bussell do with Thriving Connections. We are so lucky to have Addi and Emmy working with us!

01/02/2025

The Bloomington Severe Winter Emergency Shelter will be open January 5th through 13th at First Christian Church. We need volunteers! So email or go to our webpage to sign up: https://www.fumcb.org/severe-weather-winter-shelter-sign-up

12/27/2024

Hey everyone! What an amazing holiday season we've had! ✨ Just wanted to share some highlights from all the fun stuff we did together:

We had the best time at our Gingerbread House night! You all got so creative with those houses, and the toiletry donations were incredible. The pics say it all!
The Wizard of Oz was absolutely magical! So grateful we could get families out to enjoy the show through Community Access Tickets!
Our visit to Cedar Creek of Bloomington Assisted Living was filled with immense joy!
We ended with a fun and tasty cookie party, making great memories!

Now for some major thank yous!
Once again, thank you to Addi and IU Student United Way for the toiletry baskets for all our Captains!
Constellation Stage & Screen - We’re very grateful for the Community Acccess Tickets that allowed our families to enjoy the winter musical for the fourth year in a row!
Cedar Creek - Thank you for letting us bring caroling to your residents!
Jill and Tiana from The Luddy School of Informatics, Computing, and Engineering Office of Student Engagement and Success - Last but certainly not least, your gift drive made so many families holidays brighter this year!

Feeling so blessed to be part of such a giving community. Here's to more amazing moments together in the new year!
Much love from your Thriving Connections family! ❤️

12/21/2024

I wanted to say a quick thank you to the wonderful Serve IT Data Visualization team that worked with staff this semester to create dashboards for us. They took data and information from Thriving Connections over the last 5+ years and turned it into a really interesting visual format that makes it easier to see some of what is going on in our community. We’ll share those in the new year and hopefully continue to work with the amazing groups at IU offering their talents to local organizations.

12/21/2024

Thank you to our incredible freshman ACE student Addi for making this happen! We are so thankful for the generosity of United Way of South Central Indiana and the Student United Way group for this wonderful donation. Thank you for the work you put in, and for visiting our Thursday night meeting to deliver everything.

10/15/2024

Last week Joshua Streiff IU Luddy School Director of SPICE (Security and Privacy in Informatics, Computing, & Engineering) led impactful intergenerational cyber security programming for Thriving Connections community members. Thank you to Joshua for bringing such empowering knowledge to our community!

Lauren E Volpp taught yoga to a group of our youth and service learners )and got RAVE reviews from them) as part of our youth mental health programming, thanks to the Jack Hopkins grant we received from the City of Bloomington.

Thanks to Joe Tellas (and Katie Hopkins and Emma Rodriguez) for providing a delicious chili dinner. And as always, thanks to St. Mark's United Methodist Church for lending their beautiful space to us year after year!

09/17/2024

The Thriving Connections staff would like to say a huge (belated) thank you to those who donated time and resources to the Community Action Poverty Simulation we hosted on Saturday, September 7th.

Thank you to St. Mark's United Methodist Church for hosting not only this event, but all of Thriving Connections’ Thursday night meetings, Reverend Jessica Petersen-Mutai for co-directing the simulation and working alongside us to organize for weeks leading up to the simulation, the Bloomington Multi-faith Alliance Faith for Racial Equity team and South Central Community Action Program staff for the many Tuesday afternoons dedicated to Poverty Simulation prep, the SCCAP staff who dedicated their Saturday to a fellow SCCAP initiative, Thriving Connections Captains and teens who offered their time, lived experience, and knowledge to the simulation and panel reflection, former Thriving Connections manager Katie Hopkins for lending your experience with past Poverty Simulations (and so much more) to ensure the success of the simulation, Thriving Connections ACE staff, Allies, and long-time volunteers for staffing the simulation, St. Thomas Lutheran Church for the grant funding that allowed us to purchase supplies, provide refreshments, and offer stipends and childcare to the Thriving Connections Captains and teen staffers, to Dominos for the pizza donated to feed our setup crew, and finally, thank you to all of the community members who attended as participants!

We are so thankful to those who made the simulation a great success. Your dedication to poverty reduction in your community is instrumental in making a difference. The poverty simulation is the perfect example of Thriving Connections' hope as an initiative: bringing the experience of poverty into the minds of community members, creating community and connection across class lines, and encouraging advocacy for poverty elimination and barrier reduction.

If you'd like to connect further with Thriving Connections, we have an Open House this Thursday evening at St. Mark's United Methodist Church at 6pm--check out our page for RSVP and event details.

09/10/2024

09/08/2024

If you're interested in joining today's Ally Info Session at 1pm, there's still time to register! https://forms.gle/Da43N2vE5c9bo5Bt7

A zoom link will be sent to the email you register with before the meeting. :)

Have you ever wondered how people break the cycle of poverty? Are you interested in forming meaningful relationships with people working their way out of poverty with support from Thriving Connections staff and experienced volunteers? Have you ever wanted to be part of a diverse group, working to fi...

07/31/2024

Thriving Connections had a very busy week last week! Wednesday through Friday 8 of our older youth completed a STEM camp hosted in partnership with All-Star Imagination, sponsored by SAE International, with breakfast, snack and lunch provided by fellow SCCAP initiative Growing Opportunities. The camp culminated in presentations and demos from the participants at our annual Back to School Bash! We were lucky to have some wonderful community partners providing free resources to our families: Colonial Barber Shop, Hoosier Barber, Monroe County Youth Council, IU Behavioral Health Pediatrics, and Cry of the Children. Our families were provided with haircuts, backpacks, and valuable community resources (including some double-dutch fun)!