SPEAKER_01 0:00

Good afternoon, Bluffs Country. I'm Peggy Sweet and this is Belonging in the Bluffs, brought to you by the Iowa West Foundation. I'm joined in studio once again with my good friend Greg. He is the director of partnerships for Bridges Out of Poverty. Welcome, Greg.

SPEAKER_00 0:13

Hey, welcome, welcome. Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 0:15

Yes. How are you doing?

SPEAKER_00 0:16

I'm doing really well. Thanks for having me back again.

SPEAKER_01 0:18

Absolutely. I am thrilled to have you back. I uh understand you've got a really cool family reunion project sort of thing that you're doing coming up here, but I'm gonna let you tell me about it. I don't want to spoil it.

SPEAKER_00 0:31

Sure. So um every quarter we run classes across the Omaha Council of Semeture area. We have eight to twelve classes, and our graduates become family members. We call them family members after they graduate. And so um this is our third year renting out Baxter Arena on June 27th. So all our families are welcome to attend. We just went over 2,100 graduates. Wow. We usually have about 400 to 500 people come to our family reunion. It's for our graduates, but we also like to invite businesses across the Omaha Council Buffs metro area to have a table and a booth to network and support our graduates. Um, this is our third year. Um we usually have anywhere between 35 to 50 agencies at different tables and different booths. We it's a huge event. Um we have face painting, we have juggling, um, we have food, uh, we give out baskets for people to participate in the activity. Uh, we're looking for volunteers. Our goal is to get 27 volunteers for June 27th. Perfect. So, and I mentioned already, but uh our kind of our unique little niche that we're looking for for volunteers is we're looking for someone who has is confident in juggling and also some face painting. Um, those are the two pieces that we're looking for for specific volunteers for our event. So they have those skills, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:46

Yeah, and probably it'd be great if you found more than one in each category.

SPEAKER_00 1:50

Absolutely, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 1:51

Sounds like you're gonna be really busy.

SPEAKER_00 1:52

Yes, it's a huge event for us. And we rent out all of Bex Arena, it's on the floor of Bexar Arena.

SPEAKER_01 1:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:58

Um, and this is again um third year, it's kind of taken off and getting growing uh larger and larger every year. So yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:05

So what you're looking for are sponsorships, you're looking for volunteers, and you're looking for uh businesses that want to network.

SPEAKER_00 2:13

Absolutely, network, yep, network with our graduates. Um, and our graduates all have a bingo card, and so they go around at each different table and sign off saying that they visited, and then they put that bingo card in our big raffle. And we usually have oh, I'd say 15 to 20 different baskets, a value of $150 to $200 that agencies have sponsored uh with different themes like Iowa or Huskers or whatnot. And so then a family member would uh grab uh would turn in that that bingo card, and then if their name gets drawn, they get that that uh basket. So yeah, that's really cool. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:48

Can you tell me some of your partners?

SPEAKER_00 2:50

Yeah, um like I mentioned, um, we usually have eight to twelve different locations across the metro area in Council Bluffs here right now. We have classes at um Lake and Foundation office, uh Council Bluffs Library, and that's a Spanish class at the library, and then Habitat for Humanity. Um our next set of classes will be starting in July, and we'll be partnering with Full Circle Recovery, and also we'll do an online English class for Council Bluff's residents. That's on this side of the river. We've also partnered with uh Iowa Western Community College and All Care and Firefly and Jenny Ed as well. Um on the other side, we partnered with um uh Goodwill, CHI, um, and uh Metric Community College and Completed Kids and a whole lot of other different agencies that we have partnered with in our 10 years.

SPEAKER_01 3:35

And how can we uh find out more about these classes or uh help with volunteering? How do we get a hold of you?

SPEAKER_00 3:42

Yep, they can go to our website or shoot us an email. Our website is www.olmabop.org and omag is omab.org, or shoot us an email at info at omabop.org or give us a call at 402-8849665. And we would love for any agency to partner with us um for hosting a class, volunteering, or having a booth at our family reunion coming up.

SPEAKER_01 4:09

Or volunteering at the family reunion. And again, we are you're looking for all volunteers, but you've got a couple of uh if you've got a special skill such as juggling or face painting, you are golden.

SPEAKER_00 4:21

Yes, absolutely. Yep, that would be a great opportunity for people to network and network with the agencies. Um, and it's a great, great event. Um, we're gonna wrap this up and continue to go year after year with uh this family reunion and take it uh one notch larger and larger every single year.

SPEAKER_01 4:38

And in order to get a hold of you, it is omabop. That is om a b-op.org.

SPEAKER_00 4:44

Correct. Yep. Awesome! Yep.

SPEAKER_01 4:46

Oh, this is gonna be a great event, Greg. And so outside of uh sponsors, how else are you getting funding for this?

SPEAKER_00 4:52

Yeah, um Iowa West Foundation has uh sponsored us for many years for all our classes over on this side, and we have a lot of other agencies. Uh, individual can donate to us since we're a non-for-profit. Uh 501c3, a church could donate uh or a corporate organization or or any other big agency as uh we're welcome um that uh those funds to continue to uh have our mission to help break the poverty cycle and help bring people up to stability um with our classes, with everything that we're doing. We're a small nonprofit organization, so any funding is uh greatly appreciated.

SPEAKER_01 5:26

So and so Iowa West is a an amazing partner.

SPEAKER_00 5:29

Absolutely. They've partnered with us for many years.

SPEAKER_01 5:32

Well, Greg, thank you so much for stopping by again. I cannot wait for the family reunion. I'm sure it's going to be amazing. You come back real soon and uh we'll talk about that, how it went and the classes that you have coming up.

SPEAKER_00 5:43

Okay, yep. Sounds great. Thank you, Peggy. Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 5:46

This has been Belonging in the Bluffs, brought to you by the Iowa West Foundation.