Celebrating New Beginnings at The Villages

Sharon Pierce is the former president and CEO of The Villages. 

Dear Friend of Children,

ALL of us at The Villages send you warm and sincere wishes for this New Year, and this new decade. Thanks to each of you and your generous, compassionate heart for The Villages children, youth and families, 2020 truly WILL be filled with promise and hope!

• Selfless kinship caregivers like MISS FRANCES and GRANDPA GEORGE will continue to “stand in the gap” for the six children they are raising, while Mom works valiantly to overcome her battle with being addicted to pain killers.
• Foster parents like GRETCHEN and JOHN, featured in this newsletter, are among The Villages more than 360 licensed foster families who have opened their hearts, homes and lives to nurture children as young as a newborn and as old as a 23-year-old youth finishing their degree, while “crossing the bridge” from foster care to adulthood.
• Early childhood experts at our CHILDREN’S VILLAGE CHILDCARE CENTERS in Indianapolis and Bloomington are mitigating the challenges far too many of our youngest children face. They support their self-confidence, promote a love for reading, and encourage a welcome for EVERYONE in a “circle of friends.”
• And first-time parents, CARLOS and SUSANA, are gaining parenting and nurturing skills … every time their Healthy Families Home visitor spends time with them in their family’s home.

How are YOU touching ALL these lives—3,100 each day and 11,000 each year? You have donated formula and diapers for our “wee ones;” and created Christmas memories with books, gifts and toys that “teach” while they “touch” those who received them! Your GIFT CARDS helped our older youth shop for something BRAND NEW for themselves or for someone they love! And your dollars helped purchase cribs, car seats, mattresses, bed frames, pajamas, a new refrigerator, and kept the utilities “turned on.”

Each of YOU has assured that The Villages can, indeed, provide PROMISE, HOPE and OPPORTUNITY for this New Year! May the boundless happiness and affirmation YOU’VE passed on provide you with OPTIMISM and JOY.

With Gratitude,