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We’ve had such an outstanding relationship for several years now. It’s been dynamic;
they support our mission, which is to provide the assistance and support necessary
to people with disabilities to enable them to live valued lives in the community.
What I mean by that is that they have been side by side with us,
they’ve been involved in our programs and services, they’ve seen our individuals.
We use their corporate support and financial assistance to enhance the lives of so many of our folks.
Just ten years ago, we barely served a little over 200 children.
Last year, we made a difference in the lives of over 2,400 children and their families, thanks to the support of Circle K.
We utilize the Circle K funding to support our employment program, our residential program,
our adult-based education program, and our adult day training program.
And each one of those services—we don’t get enough funding from the state to cover the cost of providing those services,
so theoretically, without Circle K, we couldn’t provide those services.
Without the Circle K money, there are many, many types of services that we provide that we couldn’t continue to provide.
We just have to leverage every single dollar we have and
we turn every dollar that we receive into three, four, or five dollars depending upon the service.
And Circle K just has such a huge impact-- hundreds of thousands of people impacted by their support in our territory alone.
The dollars and the support that we get from Circle K allow us to provide the services that we provide
and touch the families, the children and the adults, that we do every single year.
And honestly, without their money, we wouldn’t be here to provide those services and make the changes in the lives that we do ever single year.
Bella graduated last year from our program, she was in our program for about five years and was serviced through
occupational therapy, speech therapy, music therapy, and she made a lot of progress.
She was able to learn to walk with some assistance.
Our partnership with Circle K has meant the world to UCP of South Florida and to children like Bella.
It means that we’ve been able to continue providing our programs and services, it means that we’ve been able to keep our doors open,
it means that we’ve been able to continue our therapies, including occupational, physical, speech, music.
It just has been like a family. We’ve laughed together, we’ve cried together, we’ve watched milestones happen.
Things that people normally take for granted are celebrated here.
When we’re walking down the halls, “Who’s mom?” I said, all of them are his moms
because they all have in some way played a very intricate role in his life. There are no words to express how UCP has impacted our lives.
Walter joined us about 11 years ago. He came in April of 2001.
He told us he wanted to learn to read better, and that was the first thing we tackled with him.
And he’s been practicing and learning to read such that now he can get on the internet
and take a look around and know what he’s seeing and he reads books now.
The other thing that I’ve found to be really nice is to be able to walk into a Circle K store and
see that UCP cash canister sitting right there and there’s always money in it.
That tells me that Circle K employees are telling their customers how important support of UCP is
for their business and well as their support of the community.
Here I live in Sarasota, I make it a point to visit my Circle K stores and
thank the clerks and the employees for their support of the mission of UCP.
UCP as an agency does promote our employees to go into Circle K’s- for the support that they give us, we love to give that support back to them.
So we stop in there for our gas as often as we can, coffee every morning,
and any other promotions that they have going on. The special promotions, the stars promotion for instance
the employees love to take advantage of so it really is a give and take with Circle K and UCP in the community.
Without the support of Circle K, UCP couldn’t continue its programs and services.
We want to thank Circle K for everything they’ve done for us.
And so we just thank them so much for their support over the years.
When I think of some of the folks that work at Circle K stores, with the passion and commitment that they have
for supporting our children and our families, it really makes me feel fortunate.