Dear Friends of ConnectUS,
I know that 2021 has been a difficult year for all of you. That makes me especially appreciative of your continuing support. As you can imagine, covid has forced us to adapt and make changes to the way we operate, and thanks to all of you, we have had the physical and financial support to allow us to make those changes. Thank you to all of you who repaired the broken devices we always mean to get around to fixing and somehow never did. Thank you to all of you who designed and built new devices – we can’t wait to try them out! Thank you to all of you who made cards in your homes for the people on our homebound mailing list. I know it means a lot to them to find something cheerful in their mailboxes. Thank you to all of you who rolled socks, hats and gloves and to all of you knitters who made things for our winter warm up kits. Thank you to all of you who donated yarn, felt, paper and other supplies that we will continue to need in the future. Thank you to those who cut, sewed or packaged puppet parts. Thank you to those who very kindly picked up and delivered products that we had already made or packaged. Thank you to those who helped us pickup, store, and drop-off our equipment again when Cooke School was being renovated, and thank you to those who helped us financially. Your donations helped purchase carts and containers to temporarily turn our operations into a “lending library” version of ConnectUS, and to adapt our tables and dividers for social distancing when we are finally able to return to the normal version of ConnectUS.
As I have told you all before, ConnectUS is all of you. We have no paid personnel and no formal funding but together we have been able to enhance the lives of people with severe disabilities and enable them to give back to the community by helping other charities for 13.5 years. ConnectUS is a unique organization — there are NO other organizations that serve this population the way we do. You should all be proud of the part you have played to make this happen! Knowing you like I do, I know we will have a strong future together.
I wish you all a healthy 2022. I am blessed to know you all.
Love,
Eileen