The Challenge
Given the present day breakdown of marriage and stable home environments, Thomasville Family and MarriageNet exists to try to change those statistics. When one out of every two marriages presently ends in divorce and well over half of the children of most communities living with only one parent, there needs to be resources in place to bring hope to those who find themselves in an unhealthy environment.
At our recent Board retreat, a vision casting and refocusing time, we agreed that we need to have a long term strategic plan in place. We have three long term goals:
1. to deliver healthy relationship education to every individual over 13 years old.
2. to find a facility for a Family Training Institute
3. to develop and sustain a stable funding base
TFAM has operated on minimal funding for the past three years, from donations from like minded individuals, churches and last year’s golf tournament fund raiser. Recently TFAM was awarded a Capacity grant which enabled us to purchase some office equipment and build a new web site. We also were awarded a matching grant from a local foundation for the purpose of hiring a part time program director. We have just about satisfied their requirements and will have funds for at least six months for that purpose. Of course, our desire is to continue to raise the level of awareness in our community of our financial needs, so that we can continue to fulfill our mission.
We are presently using donated and rented space for our training sessions as well as our office. Our desire is to have a facility where we can not only teach the classes we presently offer, but design a mentoring program, particularly for youth and unmarried couples. We have individuals that could teach many life skills to those who may never have gotten that training at home. We would also like to continue to train trainers who will be able to take the teaching that they have learned back into their local church or organization. We are available to equip other like minded individuals who feel like they can teach and train others.
With healthy relationship education, we believe that we will see an increase in the healthy marriage rate, a decrease in the divorce rate and a decrease in the teen parenting rate.