Cast Your Vote to Give $25,000 Grants in the Neighborhood Assist Program #SFNeighborhoodAssist #mc

What are some of your favorite community programs which you help with or know about? We have several that are our family favorites. The one that keeps us the busiest is the Weekend Warriors food program which provides weekend food bags for school age kids to feed them and/or supplement what they get at home. Our church collects food, bags the food each week, and then drops food off to the local school. The bags are then placed into backpacks of identified students who are in need. That simple. I participated in an Influencer Activation on behalf of Mom Central Consulting for State Farm. I received a promotional item to thank me for participating.

My daughter volunteering at our local food pantry. 

We've been doing this community project for 5 years now and it is a huge success. We get thank you notes written from the kids who receive the food. We all are so happy just knowing that our little extra food can help kids from going hungry on the weekend. Sometimes we wish we had more money but we make do. Besides helping others, I love that my daughters have helped collect money, shop and fill the bags for this program. A Community program like this one which brings people of all generations together is priceless! 

For community programs like our Weekend Warrior food program, State Farm Neighborhood Assist has grants available. Now that we know about this program, we will sure keep it in mind for next year. This year, over 4,000 causes were submitted to be selected for grants. Right now this has been narrowed down to the Top 200 programs and they need your help to "assist" them to get the list down to the Top 40. The Top 40 will each receive a $25,000 grant for their program. How exciting that you and I can participate in this and make it happen now through May 16th.

Communities across the United States and Canada are excited to receive these funds to help create a positive impact on their community.  Vote today and daily through May 16th with the free State Farm Neighborhood Assist Facebook application. 

Last year one of the winning groups was a community mentoring program which included a mobile art program that used students in the community to reach out and help other students. The State Farm Neighborhood Assist program allowed this particular group to become more structured and they formed student internships. The other group that I though was innovative was the group who gather tools for the community's Tool Library. These tools could be loaned out to people to do work around their home or to assist others with their homes. 

For my first day to vote, I did a search on fitness in the app. I wanted to vote for a group who wanted to bring exercise or fitness into their community. I am a huge advocate of healthy lifestyle choices which makes exercise a priority. 

After doing the search I gave my first set of 10 votes to: FIT (Fitness in Training) is designed for everyone in our Special Olympics community! It aligns with our focus of promoting inclusion through education, and shared sports training and competition for those with intellectual disabilities. FIT is geared toward our Special Olympics Iowa participants who are ready to make positive lifestyle changes through increased physical activity and healthy eating behaviors. FIT includes weekly physical fitness classes, at-home exercise sessions, and nutrition education.

There are more exercise and fitness community groups and I will keep voting for them through May 16th. Who will you vote for? Go take a peek and find a group in your community or search for a cause which you find important to you and your family.  I love the below infographic which shows all the states who applied as well as all the time that has already gone into narrowing down the Top 200 programs. 

You can help! Go vote today and every day through May 16th!