Members devoted to their community
Make a difference
Our member volunteers manage a variety of programs to benefit underserved populations in the St. Louis metropolitan region. Each program has a unique delivery model and focus, from new school uniforms to shoes and socks, and from personal care items for crisis shelter clients to teddy bears for comfort.
A highly resourceful group of 27 Assistance League members annually helps more than 1,100 St. Louisans deal with everything from food insecurity to homelessness. And with COVID 19 case numbers spiking in the St. Louis area, the need for Assistance League’s Outreach Program has grown—with the case load tripling in recent weeks.
“Our program aims to address the total spectrum---to respond to the needs of the entire family or of individuals when they need help most,” said Outreach Program Chair Terri Spink. The members of Assistance League’s Outreach Program Committee regularly reach out to social workers in St. Louis city and county to offer help when their clients must flee their homes because of abuse or when their families experience food insecurity, eviction or are burned out.
Multiple agencies also turn to the Outreach Program for a range of needs. The program supplies everything from kits full of personal care items and nutritional treats to motivate students at Lift for Life gym’s after-school programs to sleep sacks, formula, bottles and diapers for the babies of young mothers.
In 2020, Outreach also gave clothing to Mission STL, which helps families work through the cycle of poverty by offering education, skills and basic assistance. Outreach sent food to the St. Louis Public Schools’ Students in Transition Program (pictured above) helping more than 3,000 students who live in cars and temporary housing. The program also provided hygiene kits to the Urban League of Metropolitan St. Louis for their Early Childhood (Head Start) Center. In addition, Outreach supplied bags of essential hygiene products to more than 50 homeless people in Ferguson, MO, working with A Red Circle—a North County-based non-profit focused on economic development.
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