Helping People Before They’re Homeless

    That’s the focus of this week’s Trusted Talks. The Fractured Family theory is a new take on an age-old problem of stemming situational poverty.

    The government, donors, and society have deemed it appropriate to place a social safety net just a few notches above rock bottom. 

   Trusted World Founder and CEO Michael Garrett believes it’s not only wrong; it’s inefficient. His Fractured Family theory provides a fresh perspective. It challenges the status quo and offers a potential fix. 

   The idea, Garrett says, is to focus resources and assistance to help families and individuals before they fall into poverty and homelessness. He recently shared this view with a corporate donor. “The person who is in charge of their grant writing flat out told me after the demonstration I just changed the way that they write grants. They want to focus most of their funding more toward the top of that model. They’re still going to support the bottom model, but they saw the value and the impact of their donation dollars being more effective at the top of the equation rather than the bottom.”

   If you’d like to see the entire episode of Trusted Talks, you can find it at Trusted World.org.  

Celebrating the Power of Partnership and Collaboration

   “It blows my mind!” That’s how Julie Poole, the Welfare and Self-Reliance Manager for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for North Texas, Oklahoma, and Western Louisiana describes her first visit to the Trusted World processing facility in Garland.

  The second annual Trusted World Awards breakfast honors Poole’s organization by presenting it with this year’s Excellence in Collaborative Partnership Award. 

  It celebrates network partners making a real and significant difference in North Texas. Collaboration, Poole says is a two-way street, and she’s especially impressed with how Trusted World partners with school counselors in 425 schools within 20 NTX independent school districts. 

 “That just touches my heart to see that these children can get the new outfits, can get food, can get the care that they need from the people that they already trust and already love.”

  She understands the crucial role collaboration plays in making a difference. “It’s just a phenomenal organization with such foresight and vision of what can yet be done.”

    Under her direction, her Church provides Trusted World with semi-truck loads full of donations of clothes, shoes, coats, and jackets when needed. “It doesn’t matter what your expertise is or specialty is; we can all be partners together in blessing people’s lives,” Poole says. 

   During the five-year partnership with Trusted World, LDS members have volunteered more than 5 thousand hours sorting clothes, packing food boxes, and writing encouraging notes, assisting Trusted World and its nearly 800 network partners. Poole values her relationship with Trusted World Founder and CEO, Michael Garrett. 

 “Every time I have an opportunity to visit with Michael, there is something new he is bringing to his partners. He has capitalized on ‘helping people help people.'” 

   The Trusted World Awards Breakfast, presented by Atmos Energy, will be in Garland on May 4th. 

Make a Difference

    If you’d like to help make a difference, you can go to   TrustedWorld.org and click on volunteer experiences and sign up. If you’d like to help make a difference another way, you can go to the same website, and under the ways to give link, you can click on the Amazon Wish List to find food and clothing items the Network needs. 

    For clothing donations, one of our key sponsors, the Credit Union of Texas, has donation dropoff bins in every one of their North Texas branches. Next to the bin is a banner with a QR code if you want to donate money. You’ll find a complete list of dropoff bin locations on the Trusted World website. 

  Those are the headlines from around the Trusted World Network, where you can join us in helping people help people.