Wednesday, December 22, 2010

Christmas Week! Charity, Kindness, and Love... with Maps!

Doing Unto Others this Christmas Season with Maps.
"And now faith, hope, and charity abide, these three; and the greatest of these is charity." - Corinthians 13:13
(Part 9 of T/MC's 2010 "Mapping Solutions" online gallery)
Earlier this month, our Jewish friends celebrated Hannukah. This week, we're rolling quickly into Christmas.

I am not a spiritual leader by any means, but it's hard to not find a common message, shared across faiths during the holidays: People of faith are encouraged to give as well as receive.

I have been helping Tutor/Mentor Connection (T/MC) make maps since 2007, as part of a mission - and often at great personal sacrifice - to help maximize the number of at-risk youth making the best decisions they can.

Through mentoring and tutoring, we volunteers, staff, and donors at T/MC give to those in need every day...

Our efforts supplement the barrage of negative news we get about economy and crime - with solutions - working to guide at-risk and marginalized, yet able and willing students (some of whom may be otherwise lured to the streets, and many of whom simply need a little extra attention) so that they aren't everyone's problem later.

Our maps are designed to help politicians, faith-based, and other community leaders locate areas where these students live, and then build tutor/mentor facilities to help the kids onto paths that lead to college and career, versus welfare and crime.

As an added bonus to you, through our community service, T/MC maps support strategies that can work toward improving everyone's general safety, while fighting the cost of unemployment and poverty to taxpayers of all backgrounds everywhere.

Like all Non-Profit Organizations (NPOs), we rely on continued support and contribution from the community. Thanks to everyone who has supported these efforts in the past. I hate to have to continually raise funds, but with NPO donations at a 20-year low, many services like ours are threatened to disappear now more than ever. And I think you'll agree, especially after reading those links above, if we aren't making an effort to uplift children from families in poverty, who will? And what will be the cost to us all if we fail?

Please click on the links above again to see what's at stake, and feel free to take a look at the overview/history of these maps if interested, and then...

Please consider a small tax-deductible donation to this important charity this holiday season, to help this work continue into 2011.

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We at Tutor/Mentor Connection (T/MC) have spent the past several years using maps to identify and analyze areas of our city where support for at-risk youth needs to grow, in order to make our students brighter, our workforce stronger, and our streets safer.

We operate on a non-profit budget and rely on donations and charity to continue our work, using state-of-the-art GIS technologies in support of our community-based mission.

Note: since 2011 the Tutor/Mentor Connection has been operated by Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC. While this is not a tax exempt organization, it still depends on contributions to continue this work. Please consider a small donation this holiday season.

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