Paul Szmal: It is the 50th year of Child and Family Resources, and Julie Champion is here. We're going to talk about that and some other stuff this morning. Hi, Julie. How are you?
Guest: Hi, Paul. I'm good. Thanks.
Paul Szmal: And the first thing I wanted to touch on is one of the big fundraisers that you do. It's coming up on August the 21st at the Silver Creek Golf Club in Waterloo.
Guest: Yes, this is our first official fundraising event on a larger scale, and our very first golf event, Fairways for Families, is August 21st, like you said, at Silver Creek Golf Course. And we need some teams. We have some that have expressed interest, and we'd love to have you join us and celebrate And at the same time, help support us support families in our area.
Paul Szmal: If you're a golfer, this is a great time of year where you can enjoy your sport and jump in on a lot of these different tournaments that are happening, like the one that Child and Family Resources is doing on August the 21st, and golf for a good cause.
Guest: Yes, and we hope to see you. We still have time for those that are interested. They can either reach out to us at 1-800-881-5786. We also have a link on our agency website to the registration form. But we would love it if you could please just send in your form, and you can send in a deposit by the 31st of July. And that website is cfresources.org, cfresources.org. When you click on that, the homepage opens up, you'll see the flyer on the right that has the information that'll take you right to the entry and registration form.
Paul Szmal: So Julie, 50 years celebrated this year, and the organization has come a long way since its formation around 1975-1976.
Guest: Yes, and the organization actually started in 75 in the little yellow house in Gilbert Street in Rushville, and it started as a parent co-op preschool program for the rural community. And it grew into programs for school-age children, summer story hours, and parent support groups. And finally, the agency was incorporated in 1976. And since then, it's grown from that location in Rushville to locations in Penn Yan, Canandaigua, and Seneca Falls.
Paul Szmal: Yes, we've added, overall, we have five different locations currently. And it expanded into Penn Yan first. There's a lot of critical supports provided to families through counseling and home visiting to young moms and teen parents. So it started there. I think the literature I found was with a fold-up table and an answering machine, so it was very grassroots. Nancy Stanton Malter was the founding director and go-getter to get the whole agency started back then. And it was known for a long time as the Child Development Center. The Child and Family Resources name, that came around in about 2000.
Guest: Yes, yes. In 1999, Nancy retired and Sandra Murren took on the agency lead. And she helped grow the program quite well. In fact, we expanded and changed the name. We expanded the hours in the Geneva location at that point. We created a much larger Penn Yan location. And the dream was always to have Canandaigua location, and that came later in 2014. But with Sandy's leadership, we were able to begin the Healthy Families program here at CFR, which is a huge program for families.
Paul Szmal: Yeah, and we've often talked about the different services that fall under that Healthy Families umbrella. We're chatting this morning with Julie Champion from Child and Family Resources here on FLX Morning, talking about the organization celebrating its 50th anniversary. Now, that 50th anniversary is going to be commemorated later this year. But from this point, looking ahead maybe to the next five or 10 years, what are some of the goals for the organization?
Guest: Well, like most nonprofits, we want to continue to diversify funds. It's a competitive world, and the needs in our communities are always changing. So we're always looking to see what is the next need that parents have or that child care providers have. We're looking at really trying to increase our support to the child care community, helping to provide support and recruitment and staff members, helping them navigate the new UPK or universal child care system that should be coming along in the next few years. So we're going to be pretty busy supporting our families and our child care providers. And that's just the next step of the evolution that has happened over the past five decades, because as times change, as technology changes, the needs for families change too.
Paul Szmal: Yes, it did. And obviously, the pandemic really brought that to the forefront. We were able to provide support through virtual means, but we were also able to deliver supplies to families. And while many families have recovered or are doing better since then, there are many families that still struggle. As you know, the economy has totally shifted since then. And we're finding that a lot of families still need support with basic needs, household bills, groceries, supplies for their children. There's never going to be an ending need for diapers, and we'll always have those here. But I do think with the technology, it helped us evolve as an agency. We streamlined some of our basic operations. We shifted how we track our data, how we track our policy procedures and reporting. So we've actually shifted a lot in that sense. We've also moved a lot into hybrid and remote operations. A lot of our staff, because they're in the field, don't really need a full-time desk to sit at. They're out there. They're on the ground. They're delivering and meeting with families and programs. So we've really tried to adjust some of our expenses to help promote that hybrid and remote operation. And that all came about, like you said, especially with the start of the pandemic, pretty much as a matter of necessity. We weren't bandering around the word virtual meeting or things like that prior to.
Guest: Exactly. And it's funny, because with the virtual meetings, it's convenient in a lot of cases, though sometimes relationships can suffer from virtual meetings, not having that face-to-face time. So we've learned to really try to balance that with everything that we do. But it's funny how such a shift can really drive the direction of a business. And for us as a nonprofit, it really helped us look at how we were delivering services.
Paul Szmal: And speaking of those services, I want to mention at this point that Child and Family Resources is New York State Standards of Excellence certified. What does that terminology mean, Julie?
Guest: Well, for the New York State Standards of Excellence, we, as a child care resource and referral agency funded by New York State, in which there is one designated for every county in the state, we have a certification process to go through all of our procedures and how we're delivering the business to make sure we're delivering quality services. As part of our Healthy Families program, Healthy Families America has a national quality assurance as well. And our program meets the national quality standards along with all of the other Healthy Families programs in New York State. So we work really hard to make sure that we're effective, we're using funds as we should be, and that we're delivering services in a helpful way.
Paul Szmal: And that I would take as a tribute to the hardworking staff that you have, both in the office and out in the field.
Guest: Yes, our staff are amazing. They love the work that they do. They love meeting with families and supporting the child care community. For those who have worked in nonprofit, people understand that the salaries are not high. It's not a job that you get rich off of when it comes to the monetary rewards. It really is about a rewarding experience, helping folks grow, helping them meet their needs and helping families succeed.
Paul Szmal: And the 50th anniversary of Child and Family Resources is going to be marked in October. Do we have any details on that yet or a little bit too early?
Guest: We don't yet. We do have a tentative date, but I want to make sure we have that confirmed before we release that. But it'll be early October. The plan is to have a daytime event geared to businesses and agencies in the community that can come during the day, and we'll also have a fun family event on the Saturday afterwards. So we're looking forward to it.
Paul Szmal: And if you want to find out more about the different programs that are available from Child and Family Resources, cfresources.org is the website. And again, Fairways for Families, the golf fundraiser, the tournament starts at noon on Friday, August the 21st. They do need you to register by the end of the month. You can also do that at cfresources.org. As always, Julie, a pleasure having you on board. Thank you so much.
Guest: Thank you, Paul. We'll see you next month.
