Serving Our Neighbors Ministries Inc

Free summer lunch camp now in its 18th year, the festa's free summer lunch camp welcomes children facing poverty from culturally diverse backgrounds to join us daily for friendship, recreation, reading support, special activities, and a nutritious, free lunch. Children who attend will participate in age- appropriate programming and eat a nutritious meal daily the summer lunch camp helps children who receive free or reduced lunch at school while school is not in session by serving free breakfast and lunch while facilitating camp activities including entrepreneurial learning. This program combats suburban poverty by providing children with a safe space to grow, learn, and be part of a supportive and positive community. During summer 2024, we welcomed 706 children (a 5.7% increase) and served a total of 7603 meals with 352 volunteers serving 4,037 hours. In addition to the expense reported above, there was 84,418 in donated rent and 1,752 in professional services which were reported in the financial statements as contributions in program expense. For the form 990, however, the irs requires that contributed services and use of facilities be excluded from both revenue and expense.

Connecting families in need to community resources when families who attend our programs have a vital need for food, clothing, shelter or emergency bill payment we vet the need and make the connection to local churches, suburban neighbors, partner organizations or our benevolent fund with the goal of stabilizing families. We serve as a vital link connecting families with needs to a host of community services. During fy24 (september 2023 through august 2024), our staff worked on and successfully closed 94 connecting to resources cases. Festa and cornerstone christian fellowship partner with the community to provide an affordable shopping experience for families with a limited income. The good tidings christmas store allows families to purchase a variety of items at very affordable prices in a respectful manner. This is a dignity store and offers families in our community a respect filled "hand-up" versus a "handout." all sales generated go to purchase additional toys, enabling more families to shop. Our goal is to give parents and guardians with limited income a way to christmas shop for the children in their lives at a very low cost, in a respectful way. During the 2023 holiday season, we were able to serve 275 families. 849 children received gifts thanks to the good tidings christmas store with 102 volunteers serving 634 hours. In addition to the expense reported above, there was 1,663 in donated rent, which was reported in the financial statements as contributions in program expense.

March 2023 festa started a social enterprise festa business esl where businesses can hire festa to teach english to associates and spanish to managers on-site before working hours, making it free and convenient for them. Being bilingual is a top business skill in the united states. Festa business esl allows companies to invest in their employees, offering them the opportunity to become bilingual. This will close the communication gap among coworkers, strengthening the team and help attract new employees while retaining quality talent. In 2024, we continued with one company and offered proposals to 2 others. Festa offers training, coaching, and consulting, since 2008 to help churches, civic associations, local governments, school districts and other group of caring people provide crucial support to thousands of children and families facing poverty in their suburban neighborhoods. Topics include running our flagship programs of 3-generation family english and free summer lunch camp as well as poverty, cultural diversity, and volunteerism. In august 2024, festa offered training to the community of springfield ohio, which enabled them to start a 3-generation family esl program in that city.