Looking Toward 2022 With Hope - A Letter from the Executive Director

Like most other community foundations, Kiawah Cares has been extraordinarily active over the past months. The needs have been greater, but they also reinforce the value of the work we’re doing in our neighboring island communities. 

As we wrap up 2021 and look toward the new year, it’s with so much hope. However, there are also some challenging realities that we need to prepare for. Since my time with the Kiawah Cares Foundation, there has not been a year with as many competing priorities as this current year. As we see the area’s demographics change, island schools are losing their Title 1 status and, with it, the funding that supports the school’s critical needs beyond the basic state educational mandates. Our organization and ones like us will be asked for more support to allow the schools to meet these extra needs and continue giving basic support to students. Rising costs also mean it is more difficult to feed the community and to support other basic humanitarian needs, like clothing, shelter and essential services like wells for clean water. Many of our partners’ holiday food drives have lowered their goals, not because there is less need, but because they want to set realistic expectations. Of course, the Kiawah Cares Foundation will step in and bridge some of the gap, because that’s part of our mission.

But I also want to emphasize the hope. If the past months have proven anything, it’s that a strong community can pull together to tackle the hard tasks. Through your support, we’re able to give approximately $180,000 each year to directly support these important efforts in the critical areas of education and humanitarian aid. These are broad categories but within them are the things we see most in the community: struggles with literacy, opportunity, hunger, safe housing and more. You help us tackle these items every single day and, for that, we are so grateful.

As we move into the holiday season, we also transition into our annual giving campaign for the first time since 2019. This year, we’d like to ask you to help us continue to do our essential work in the community. The $180,000 we provide each year means we support about $15,000 in fundamental needs each month, with very little held back for administrative costs. Our advantage is our model: we’re a small and nimble organization. We use our close relationships with partner organizations to direct funds to the areas where they are most needed. This means that our dollars can do more with fewer overhead costs cutting into the bottom line, and more money gets to where it can do the most good. In turn, our partners help us understand the needs of the community. Through these efforts and relationships, we’re able to reduce redundancies in services and focus efforts to the most impactful programs. 

But the first and most impactful piece is you. It’s your support that makes it all possible. This year, we don’t have a final number we’re pushing toward, largely because we don’t know what 2022 will hold for our neighbors. We do know that the need is not going away and we want the community foundation to be ready when those needs arise. Any amount you can give gets us closer to meeting these critical needs.

Finally, I’d like to celebrate what we’ve all achieved together over the years. When our neighbors don’t know where to turn, our partners know to come to us and that is a powerful testament to the work that we do. We say it every year around this time, but it’s always true: we’re so thankful for you!