Dove, Inc.

We’ve definitely been keeping extra busy here in the administrative office.   Dove is currently undergoing the annual Audit.   Dove’s fiscal year runs from July through June and so every year beginning in September we undergo an audit which takes several weeks to complete.   The auditing firm looks at everything (and I mean everything ) that Dove is doing.   From receipts for toilet paper to large grant income and expenses to payroll to client files.   They make sure we’re doing exactly what we should be with grants and generous community donations. Sometimes it’s easy to forget everything that must happen behind the scenes in order for Dove to provide services.   Our department and the staff members within the programs work all year long to assure everything runs smoothly come audit time.   To say going through the audit is fun and exciting would be stretching the truth.   That being said, when it’s all over we are all proud to have accomplished such a large task.   It helps remi

If you have ever wanted to know what service to our community looks like, you wouldn't  have had to look any further than yesterday's Retired and Senior Volunteer Program, Annual Recognition Banquet.  Congrats to the R.O.S.E. - Recognition of Service Excellence Awards Recipients. Their individual stories of volunteering and making a difference in our community was each amazing. As remarkable as their stories were, knowing many of the volunteers in the room, each could have shared about a lifetime of service and a lifetime of giving. Thanks to each member of the RSVP program! A few statistics: 2011-2012 RSVP of Macon & DeWitt Counties 621 RSVP Volunteers • 429 women & 192 men, average age • 75 Community Service Hours • 120,846 Community Agencies Served • 87  

Today as I write to you I am reflecting on a recent study I completed called A Compassion, Justice, and the Christian Life @ created by Dr. Robert D. Lupton. This author has invested more than 34 years in inner-city Atlanta serving financially at risk families in their daily struggles. Dr. Lupton shares stories of how things worked well for him and when they went wrong. In the stories of what went wrong he speaks of the corrections which were necessary to bring health to those programs. I love it when someone will share what didn = t work and how they corrected their efforts. As I progressed through this study I began recognizing many methods we currently use in our own community towards helping our neighbors in need. I also began recognizing many bi-products our efforts are creating. Isn = t it remarkable how reading about these things as someone else discovers them is easier for us to understand than seeing it right under our own nose?   Let me share some quotes from this study

As students head back to school, teens focus on academics, sports, extracurricular activities, and relationships.   Dating is an important rite of adolescence in which teens grow towards adult relationships.   Although dating should be a fun and exciting part of the teen years, statistics show that one in three teenagers have experienced violence in a dating relationship.   In dating violence, one partner tries to maintain power and control over the other through abuse. This abuse takes many forms – physical, emotional/psychological, sexual, jealousy and isolation, and stalking.   Dating violence crosses all racial, economic, and social lines. Although victims can be male or female, most are young women, who are also at greater risk for serious injury. Often, teen dating violence is hidden from adults and friends because teens are inexperienced with dating relationships, have romantic views of love, want independence from their parents, and are pressured by peers to act violently.