Pictured here with The Connecting Grounds’ Holly Madden and Christie Love are Rob Baird of the Musgrave Foundation distribution committee and Brian Fogle of the Community Foundation of the Ozarks.

The Connecting Grounds recently received a grant of over $43,000 to expand their Family Connection program. Holly Madden, Family Connection Director, had this to say about the grant, how it will be utilized, and how it will impact many lives:

We are so incredibly honored for our Family Connection program to be one of the grant recipients for the Musgrave Foundation and Community Foundation of the Ozark’s grant to support children and families in the foster care system.

From the moment we hosted our very first parent-child visit, we saw the hope that this safe space and volunteer supervisors that engaged relationally brought to our families while they worked towards reunification.

This program started as an outreach one night a week but has rapidly expanded across the county and now the state.

We are incredible humbled to be selected for this grant which will be used to further expand this program. A few of those projects will look like finishing the remodel on our garage on TCG property which will turn into a function-able second visit space to be used every evening throughout the week! We will also be able to pay a stipend to a new staff member to support the local Family Connection while current staff focuses on expansion of Family Connection. This funding will also provide for some monthly activity expenses for parent-child visits, and will fund the next 2 semesters of our Parent Connect program!

There really aren’t words for how grateful we are for this opportunity and how excited we are to love on and support even more families across Greene County and across Missouri!

Congratulations and blessings to The Connecting Grounds as they further this vital ministry!