Letter from the Chair, Board of Directors
JOSHUA DOWNER
“Our staff is on the ground. Day or night, wherever the need is.”
When I joined the Board of Directors in 2018, those were the words Penny Griffith used to describe Collaborative Solutions for Communities (CSC). Three years later, I can confirm that our executive director’s description was entirely accurate. CSC operates on a simple but fundamental truth: people’s lives happen in real time. They are growing, moving towards health and wholeness, or they are falling backwards, often into brokenness and despair. The problems plaguing our community are not isolated. Ultimately, they are different versions of the same malignant phenomenon: the impact of poverty and injustice – that results in the breakdown of the family. When a family comes apart, there is unfath- omable pain. It injures every member of the family—It echoes through generations. The pain and dysfunction spread into the community and exacts its toll every day. CSC strives to heal our community by healing families. Let me take that one step further: We proceed on the belief that we are all one family, that we can alleviate suffering in our community by honoring that basic reality. Others are on the forefront of fighting injustice. CSC picks up the pieces of injustice in real time. The great strength of our organization is that it meets people where they are. As a result, we have a wide array of programs with a single theme: providing tangible, practical responses to real-time needs in
our community. That immediacy, personal connection and continuity informs every aspect of our work. In fundamental ways, CSC and its work challenges the notion that anyone is lost to brokenness and the inequity of our community. As I’ve watched our teams in action, listened to their stories, and heard first-hand from grateful members of our community, it is plainly evident that our clients—even those who come to us at their lowest points, under order of a court—are not the root problem in our society. To the contrary, when they encounter people who genuinely care about them and receive support, when they can reclaim ownership of their lives and see a path forward, they are the solution.
On behalf of our Board of Directors, welcome to our Impact Report to the community. l
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