Hopeful Happenings

Credibility International is one of professional golfer Tim Petrovic's sponsors on the PGA Champions TOUR. The forensic accounting firm is also a big supporter of charity. Through their Birdies for Charity program, they donated $10,650 to the 'Hope Totes' program . "We couldn't be more pleased to see Tim's partnership with one of his sponsors on the course positively impact our children's charity in such a big way," said For Every Child, Inc. president Julie Petrovic. This donation is enough to provide totes to over 1,000 kids. Credibility International is located in Washington, DC and works globally in financial disputes, forensic investigations and forensic accounting.

Please watch the video below:

Pictured above is the very first Cable Com golf tournament. We were very fortunate to be the recipients of this year's Cable Com golf tournament and received $11,000. Held at Twin Creeks Golf Club in Cedar Park, Texas, the tournament included fun events like closest to the pin prizes, a hole in one opportunity and specialty auction items such as a Texas wild hog hunt and a round golf with a touring golf pro. Cable Com president Paul Davis describes how the tournament started and evolved into a major supporter for local charities. "Cable Com has been holding an annual golf tournament for the past 30 years. Our 1 st tournament was the summer of 1991 with employees and a few of our friends. It was held at Bar K, a nine-hole course out by Lake Travis. We have had the tournament every year except for 2020 which was cancelled due to COVID. After a few years, we asked vendors to sponsor the tournament so we could invite some of our customers and we began donating money to Coats for Kids, a local Austin charity. I met Tim and Julie in 2006. We became pretty good friends. In 2011, I asked Tim if he would show up for our tournament and hit balls with some of our customers. He agreed to do so and we started supporting For Every Child. The rest is history."

Asking questions about what is really needed has changed our totes

Charitable giving has become a big business in America! Large organizations developed to support specific charities have generated large staffs to support the fundraising function and the marketing programs to attract contributions from the public. Federal and state tax law has been written to encourage contributions by offering deductions for charitable gifts from both personal and business income tax. The Rise of For-Profit Fundraisers This has encouraged the growth of large organizations that do nothing except raise funds for charities and which take significant portions of the money raised for management salaries and marketing expenses that amount in some instances to as much as 50% of the donated funds! Recent changes to Federal Tax Law have reduced the attractiveness of the tax benefit of charitable giving, which has resulted in reductions in the amount of money given to charities. As a result, it has placed some strain on the budgets of some larger fundraising businesses. The result is that charities are more dependent on gifts from persons and entities, less for the tax benefit and more because they just want to DO GOOD! For Every Child which operates the Hope Totes program is committed to using all donated funds responsibly. The charity does not have paid positions, marketing budgets or use for-profit fundraisers. When you give $50 to For Every Child, 100% of that donation goes directly to helping the children in need.

Children are crying, refusing to leave their parents as they experience a myriad of adult-sized emotions including fear, confusion and grief over a loss they cannot understand yet. It's a heartbreaking scene to take in as child protective services enter the children's home and remove them from their families. The CPS agents usher the crying and scared children into vehicles with only a few of their belongings and taken to a place they have never seen before, full of strangers. The kids don't know when or if they will ever see their families again. This is the traumatic reality of 55 to 60 children each day throughout Central Texas as they are removed from abuse and neglect. While it is normal to assume these children would welcome the removal from abusive homes, these are the only homes and families they have ever known. Now they enter a system that is wholly overwhelmed with nothing but a small trash bag and rarely a change of clothing.

Central Texas, including Travis County, currently has over 1,200 children in the foster care system. While abuse and neglect are often the most common reasons for a child's removal from his or her home, they aren't the only ones.

For those readers who don’t have a working definition, foster kids are children who, for reasons ranging from the death of one or both parents to abuse and neglect, enter the state’s foster care system. To learn more about the many reasons a child may enter the foster care system, please my article on Reasons children enter foster are not always what you think .

Abused and neglected children arrive to a stranger's house with only a trash bag and the clothes on their back. That's not good enough.