Paul Szmal: Good morning, it's 817. It's Wednesday morning, FLX Morning. It's our monthly Zoom with Julie Champion. Child and family resources at CFResources.org. Good morning.
Julie Champion: Good morning, Ted.
Paul Szmal: So you're doing a holiday toy and gift drive for your client, families, and children. So first question is, how do you determine your recipients? Is it anybody who's attended a program or taken advantage of your resources? How do you put that list together?
Julie Champion: Well, we're basically looking at the families that we work with more regularly who've expressed a need or concern about being able to support their family through the holiday. So anyone that received a service through us that has shared that information with us would be part of the list.
Paul Szmal: What are you seeing in terms of the overall financial health of client families? Are people struggling? We had a round of inflation coming out of the pandemic and, you know, very noticeably prices of certain things have gone up.
Julie Champion: Yes, we've actually seen some pieces slow down a little more and more families are back to work. We have a lot of folks who are always in need of infant items, diapers, wipes, all of that kind of stuff. But I think that more and more families still need hygiene products, household items because of the housing instability that they might have. So we're really hoping to support them for the holidays and get gifts for their children so that they can use their funds for those other items that they need.
Paul Szmal: So explain what you're looking for in terms of the toys or gifts.
Julie Champion: Well, what we're looking for are new unwrapped gifts for children ages 0 to 15. And we're also able to accept new hygiene products, blankets, or household items. So and they will be given obviously to the folks who are requesting that need. And I think a lot of the toys that have come in over the years have been fantastic. This is, we've done this for several years, and the communities are very, very generous.
Paul Szmal: These items can be dropped off by December 11th at the offices at 263 Lake Street in Penny Ann, 115 Fall Street in Seneca Falls, or 502 South Main in Canandaigua.
You're doing this in conjunction with Healthy Families Ontario, Yates, and Seneca. We've talked about them before. Remind us about that organization.
Julie Champion: Well, Healthy Families is a program at Child and Family Resources. Oh, okay. That's okay. But they've gotten really, really big. So and you hear about them a lot. And Healthy Families is an intensive home visiting. So our staff go into the program, into the families, and help them out with a variety of needs. And we serve, I would say approximately 90 to 100 families in that capacity.
Paul Szmal: Wow. So there's a lot of folks that we work with, and we're with them for up to five years. So it's amazing how much we can offer supports and connect them to resources.
And feel free to shout out to your sponsors. You have some businesses that are helping out with this effort.
Julie Champion: We sure do. This year, we have so many folks who have offered to help. We have Wally's Ford in Seneca Falls. We have the Department of Human Services in Seneca at Wanda Peroneal Drive. We have Lakeshore Family Dentistry in Canandaigua. We also have Bostrom Market in Stanley, New York, and Project Lean Nation in Canandaigua. All who are so awesome in that they're offering to collect toys for us.
Paul Szmal: So this drive is again for new unwrapped toys or gifts, but also necessities like those hygiene products, blankets, household items that families can certainly use. And the donation deadline, please, if you would, is by December 11th.
I saw I wanted to mention something else here that I saw on the front page of the website CFResources.org. You have a schedule of webinars, because we've talked a lot this year about child care. And there's something called the Business Navigator Toolkit, which is for employers to help their employees. Because employees that are worrying about child care don't have as much time to spend on work. So tell us about this series of webinars and the code on your website.
Julie Champion: Well, the webinars are designed for business folks to join and get a sense of what some of the benefits and positives that their business might be able to benefit from by supporting families in their child care need. The Navigator Toolkit is actually coming out after the new year. But the webinars are really designed to give folks a sense of what's included in the toolkit. And I would encourage if you own a small business, large business, please try to sign up for one of the webinars. And there's actually going to be the in person event. Most likely it will happen in Rochester, because there's a regional approach there. But we are here at Child and Family Resources to offer support to any businesses who have questions about how they can support the child care need for their employees.
Paul Szmal: And of course, right on the front page at CFResources.org is the state's Child Care Assistance Portal. And lots of resources, as we've talked about from both ends of the equation, whether you're looking for care or considering becoming a care provider.
So once again, the Holiday Toy Drive drop-off locations. And actually I mentioned the offices that you can also drop them off at Fort of Seneca Falls, 2027 U.S. 20. Project Lean Nation, that's Eastern Boulevard in Canandaigua. Bostrom Market in Stanley, it's about halfway between Geneva and Canandaigua on 5 and 20. Or the DHS office in Seneca County at DePronio Drive. Also Lakeshore Family Dentistry was one of the sponsors.
So we're looking for new unwrapped toys and gifts and also family necessity items as well. And please donate those by December 11th.
Julie, thanks for the time as always. And thanks for what you're doing for all these families. It's really great work and I'm glad to share it with people every month.
Julie Champion: Thank you, Ted. We'll see you next month.
