EDUCATION

Boys & Girls Clubs of North Mississippi’sProject Learn: Making the Most of Power Hour program provides homework and tutoring assistance to LOU Barksdale Club members in first through third grade in order to improve reading proficiency and on-time grade progression as well as decrease the achievement gap.

Gordon Community & Cultural Center, Inc. Abbeville School After-School Learning Camp seeks to promote student success by ensuring enrolled students in first through sixth grade have a working understanding of the day’s lessons and assisting them with their homework.

Lafayette County Literacy Council’s Adult Basic Literacy Education (ABLE) program aims to raise awareness about the benefits of possessing functional literacy and a high school equivalency (HSE) diploma as well as identify and recruit adults who lack one or both in order to increase Lafayette County’s literacy rate along with the number of residents who have a diploma.

Lafayette County Literacy Council’s provides a quality, age-appropriate book on a monthly basis to registered children between the ages of birth to five years through Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library, which aims to foster a love of reading by enrolling low-income families in the program and educating parents on how and why to read to their young children.

LOU Reads Coalition is a group of local organizations and community leaders dedicated to ensuring that all children in our community can read proficiently by the end of the third grade. Coalition members focus their collective energy and expertise on school readiness, attendance, out-of-school time opportunities, and targeted efforts to promote grade-level reading.

The Leap Frog Program is an after-school tutoring and enrichment program that provides a nurturing environment in which at-risk students in first through third grade can develop and enhance necessary skills for academic success, build productive, ongoing relationships with adults, and improve their self-esteem.

HEALTH

Family Crisis Services of Northwest Mississippi’s Victim Services program provides comprehensive advocacy services to victims of crime (sexual assault, child abuse, domestic violence, family violence, and homicide) from the initial onset of their assault through the entire healing process.

Girl Scouts Heart of the South’s Go-getter, Innovator, Risk-taker, Leader (GIRL) on the Go program teaches girls how to make positive choices for physical and mental well-being in addition to helping them develop a strong sense of self, positive values, healthy relationships, and critical life skills.

Junior Auxiliary of Oxford’s Focusing Resources of Effective Student Hygiene (FRESH) Project aims to provide children with the items that are most needed to promote good personal hygiene as well as promote its five founding principles of respect, physical and emotional well-being, confidentiality, honesty and responsibility, and self-determination.

North Mississippi Exchange Family Center’s Give Care program provides backpack-style bags filled with toys, journals, and personal items for children, which are kept in emergency vehicles and given to children in times of crisis as a means to offer comfort and reduce long-term trauma.

Oxford Community Market’s Market Fresh Food for Everyone program provides multi-faceted direct services to reduce food insecurity by improving access to and increasing consumption of fresh, healthy, local food by mitigating barriers as well as improving knowledge of how to grow and prepare fresh produce.

Special Olympics Mississippi (Area 4) provides year-round sports training and competition in a variety of Olympic-type sports for children and adults with intellectual disabilities, which offers opportunities to develop physical fitness, demonstrate courage, experience joy, and participate in a sharing of gifts, skills, and friendship.

Yocona Area Council, Boy Scouts of America and its Membership Recruitment program provides financial assistance to help pay membership dues as well as other required fees for economically-disadvantaged children and youth living in Lafayette COunty in order to provide them the ability to participate in scouting.

FINANCIAL STABILITY

Doors of Hope Transition Ministries’ Self-sufficiency Transition Empowerment Program (STEP) guides homeless families and at-risk homeless families toward self-reliance as well as stability through a holistic, individualistic approach that includes life-skills training, mentoring, and supportive housing.

North Mississippi Kidney Foundation’s Patient Assistance program seeks to improve the health and quality of life of dialysis patients through the provision of basic and emergency needs, including financial assistance for transportation, medication, and other critical needs.

BASIC NEEDS

Court Appointed Special Advocates (CASA) of Lafayette County’s Socks & Soles for CASA program provides shoes and socks for children in foster care, with a goal of providing each child with a new pair of shoes and socks before the school year begins or at some point throughout the year as many foster children come into custody without clothes or shoes. 

Doors of Hope Transition Ministries’ Emergency Assistance program helps families with basic needs such as utilities and rent in order to keep them in sustainable housing through a temporary crisis with a goal of helping them work towards long-term self-sufficiency.

Interfaith Compassion Ministry’s Homeless Client Assistance program stabilizes local homeless individuals and families, including victims of domestic violence, by providing and referring them for counseling as well as assisting in providing safe and healthy places to stay or live, with reasonable access to basic needs such as food, utilities, medical care, and transportation.

Interfaith Compassion Ministry’s Indigent Client Assistance program helps individuals and families deal with crisis situations by providing for their basic needs like shelter, food, utilities, medication, and transportation as well as offering counseling to help clients become more financially independent and self-sufficient. 

The Salvation Army’s Emergency Assistance program seeks to provide basic necessities such as clothing, household goods, utility assistance, etc. to local residents with emergency needs due to natural disasters, domestic situations, homelessness, and other circumstances beyond their control.

Three Rivers Area Agency on Aging (AAA) provides senior citizens nutritional meals five days a week, keeps senior citizens in their home environment for as long as possible, and provides socialization as well as financial stability through its local Meals on Wheels program.

ADDITIONAL COMMUNITY IMPACT WORK

Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) Clinic assists low- and moderate-income residents of Lafayette County with free tax return preparation twice a week at the Lafayette County-Oxford Public Library during tax season. Students in the University of Mississippi School of Law’s tax practicum clinical program manage and staff the clinic.