Cowboy Boots & Community Roots Helping Hands Happy Hour raises more than $8,000 for Better Together

The Cowboy Boots & Community Roots Helping Hands Happy Hour, hosted by the Centre Club in Tampa, recently raised $8,151 for Better Together.

The western-themed event on Oct. 9 brought together community supporters and Centre Club members to learn about Better Together’s mission and how the volunteer-powered organization provides a safety net to help families in need. The evening, sponsored by ReliaQuest Bowl, consisted of cocktails, games, prize drawings and community.

Better Together works to prevent the need for foster care by building strong families and communities. When a parent needs support – due to homelessness, a medical emergency, or other crisis – Better Together volunteer host families provide a safe, loving home for the children short term, while staff and mentors empower the parents to secure employment, housing and other needs. Because job loss is at the root of most family crises, Better Together’s workforce program provides opportunities for all job seekers through relational job fairs and volunteer job coaches.

During the event, Isis LaRose, Better Together’s vice president of strategic partnerships and market development, provided a powerful demonstration.

“If you had a medical emergency right this minute and you opened your phone’s contact list, is there one person that you could call that would drop everything,” she asked. “All of us have emergencies, but not all of us have someone to call. The heart of our mission is to help families build that support network so that they can thrive well into the future.”

To date, Better Together has served more than 15,000 children, and 98% of children served through mentoring and hosting remain out of the foster care system. The nonprofit has also connected more than 46,000 job seekers to employment opportunities through church-based job fairs across 24 states.

To learn more about Better Together, visit BetterTogetherUS.org.

ABOUT BETTER TOGETHER

Better Together is a nonprofit organization that helps parents going through a hard time keep their kids out of foster care, find work and address the root causes of their struggle so that they can reunite as a family with the tools and support system to thrive. A privately funded and professionally supported organization, Better Together is made up of volunteers who believe helping people help themselves is the best way to restore dignity and bring families together. Through the Better Families program, families are offered a preventive alternative to foster care while they get the help they need. To date, the program has kept 98% of children served out of foster care. The Better Jobs program was created to address the 76% of families that come to Better Together because of economic hardship tied to unemployment. In addition to community job fairs, the program offers job seekers coaching, guidance, support and encouragement through local church partners. For more information, visit BetterTogetherUS.org.