— Submitted by the Community Foundation

We need your help.

Many of you will remember the major undertaking of the Community Foundation back in 2008-09, when our island was hit so hard by the economic downturn of those couple years.

At that time, we convened a multitude of organizations and individuals to determine what the most critical needs were that could be addressed by a cross-community united effort, helping to shore up those areas of greatest need during such a difficult time.

Now, it’s five years down the road, and we feel it’s time to reassess community needs and determine if new courses of action should be developed for addressing them.

The 2015 Community Needs Task Force will provide a forum for discussion of community needs, increase awareness of current and future projects, and facilitate collaboration among organizations. We invite nonprofits, business leaders, agencies, and the community as a whole to attend a one-hour kick-off stakeholder meeting on March 30, beginning at 11 a.m. at the San Juan Community Theatre.

Following a short introductory presentation, you will be able to meet the chairs of each workgroup in the areas of social services, our environment, education (secondary through college), early childhood education (birth-grade 6), our food supply, housing, community service, emergency preparedness—and sign up to get involved.

You can get more information on the Community Needs Task Force by contacting Michel Vekved, 360-298-8268, or michelvekved@sjicf.org – or you can just show up on Monday, March 30. Remember – we need you. The fabric of our community becomes stronger when we weave solutions together.

The San Juan Island Community Foundation serves as a non-profit philanthropic umbrella organization helping donors, non-profits and public organizations to achieve their goals through direct grants, organizational assistance and philanthropic resource management. For general information about the Community Foundation, please call 378-1001 or visit our website at: http://sjicf.org/.