marquettegolfevent.com

Dear Friend,

The Institute for Community is proud to celebrate its 25^th anniversary during 2020.  With the recent challenges for Covid-19, this year has been especially challenging. For three months, we greatly missed all the families and children we serve due to the shelter in place orders. Even now, we are extremely limited in our interaction with the community as we are restricted to groups of less than 10 people and many of our program partners are not in operation. Even so, we continue to serve.

• The Friendship Centre at HighPoint, located on a Marquette property, gives out over $100,000 each year in scholarships to families in Will County in the areas of recreation, after school and summer camp care, academic enrichment, and family support initiatives and programs. We are continuing our scholarship program, so kids do not continue to suffer the effects of the pandemic, utilizing a portion of our operating reserves to currently bridge the gap in funding from program revenue loss.

• The IFC extended food distribution programs, initiated at the local schools, in partnership with Northern Illinois Food Bank. All summer in 2020, IFC staff is handing out free lunches to any family with children that comes to the Friendship Centre Monday-Friday from the entire county area.

• The IFC has bridged the gap with our more than 18 program partners, assisting them with restarting their programs in the community, by giving grants and expense assistance so they begin to serve the community again in the areas of education, the arts, leadership, and recreation. Helping our partners get back on their feet is critical to neighborhood success.

We realize that this year, it seems like our charity golf event is not feasible. Concerns regarding the health and wellness of our donors and staff are considerable. We also realize that some business segments have had significant challenges, while others have weathered the storm with little change thus far. Due to these concerns, we have decided to promote a Shelter In Place Outing, asking all our friends and supporters to donate what they are able. We plan on directing the expenses budgeted for the outing ($50,000) as the initial contribution to the outing, in hopes of hitting our goal of $150,000. We plan on doing an extensive video, which will include all our donors, having fun with a golf theme, which will be shared on all media outlets and with the local news outlets, to hopefully provide some encouragement in the news cycle.

A representative from Marquette or the IFC is available to answer any questions you may have. For further information call us @ 815-588-6130

marquettegolfevent.com