Where The Wild Things Are

The Early Learning and Kindergarten classrooms toured First Place this morning showing their terrible eyes and terrible claws.

Vote Yes On Prop. 1!

by Dr. Doreen Cato, Executive Director

On November 3rd, if Seattle voters do not vote to approve Housing Levy, Proposition 1, First Place will lose important funding to two of our most essential programs; the Rental Assistance Program and the Housing Program.


Please vote yes to renew this important proposition when you vote between now and November 3rd. You will find Proposition 1 on the back of your ballot in the upper right hand corner. Vote YES to approve the Levy, which for the past 28 years has been assisting some of Washington’s most vulnerable citizens from losing their housing in difficult times. Last year, for example the First Place Rental Assistance Program directly served one hundred and forty five individuals helping these people with immediate funding to help them retain or obtain housing.

Also, by providing networking and contact information to other community resources, the First Place Rental Assistance Program served approximately 3,362 individuals last year.

First Place is one among many local organizations providing Rental Assistance funding to families in order to prevent them from becoming homeless. This funding helps by:

• preventing families from losing their homes and becoming homeless;
• preventing homelessness while a family deals with job loss, medical bills or a death in the family;
• moving families into market-rate housing through providing deposits for apartments;
• providing support services to stabilize families for the long-term; and
• leveraging Non-Profit developers, enabling them to build affordable housing for families.

Rental Assistance is just one of the 5 successful programs funded through the Housing Levy, yet affects over 3,000 families.

Where will these families go when they lose their homes? Our state’s unemployment rate just went up to 9.3% -- now more than ever families need help to keep their homes and children need a safe and warm place to come home to.

First Place endorses passing Proposition 1.

*This letter is part of bi-yearly newsletter.

Two Ways To Support First Place At The Grocery Store

We're really excited about two ways you can help support First Place right now -- by shopping at Safeway and by collecting Box Tops For Education.

Right now, if you shop at Safeway, check your receipts for the section titled "10% Back-To-Schools". It looks exactly like this:

First Place will receive 10% of your total if you follow the instructions listed on your receipt! Safeway will stop printing this offer on October 9 and then you will have until October 13 to go online and enter the code. All you have to do is go to the website www.backtoschools.escrip.com and click "Enter Receipts". Then you choose First Place as your school, or enter ID 5000012903. Then continue following instructions.

The great news is, you only have to do it once, and it tracks your purchases!

Now Collecting: Box Tops For Education!

Box Tops for Education tabs can be found on hundreds of items you buy at the grocery store like Cherrios, Hefty, Kleenex, Huggies, Cottonelle, and more. (See a full list of items here.)

Collecting Box Tops and sending them to First Place has the potential to raise thousands of dollars towards school supplies and learning materials for our teachers and students.

We want as many people as possible to get in the habit of collecting Box Tops For Education and mailing them in to First Place.

Here are some ideas on how you can help us:

• Ask your workplace, neighbors or book club to collect box tops.
• Put a message out on Facebook and/or Twitter with a link to this blog posting.
• If you already collect Box Tops for another school, consider splitting your collection and sending half to First Place.
  
• You can even sign up for special deal and news alerts from the Box Tops For Education website.
  

Once you start collecting, all you need to do is mail the Box Tops to:
First Place
Attn: Development Office
PO Box 22536
Seattle, WA 98122

We will be mailing a package out about every other month.