The Link of Cullman County is entering its eighth year of providing a variety of services to members of the community who are in need, and November marks the beginning of its 2020 Annual Giving Campaign. 

The theme for the 2020 Giving Campaign is a quote from Fred Rogers asking, “Won’t you be my neighbor?” and each week of the campaign looks at a different aspect of that question.

For the first week of November, the question is “Who is my neighbor?” and the short answer is that The Link’s staff considers all Cullman County residents to be their neighbors, and welcomes anyone who is in need of assistance. 

Director of Community Development Melissa Betts said The Link offers many services to community members, with everything from job training classes, adult and child literacy programs, mental or emotional support, supervised visitations, monthly community meals or a chance to take a hot shower.

For those in need of something that The Link does not offer, the organization lives up to its namesake by serving as a link to other non-profits, churches or community organizations that can lend a hand, she said. 

Director of Neighbor Relations Julie Hall, who serves as co-director of The Link with Betts, said neighbors in need can come from anywhere in the community and could be looking for support in many different types of needs. 

“Anyone who comes to us receives whatever we can do for them,” she said. “Our focus is really to empower people to move to their next step, whatever that is in their life.”

Hall said that next step could be someone who is materially poor who is looking for something like job skills or literacy classes, but it can also include those who need to move to the next step in their relationship and are looking for the emotional support to do so, and the people who come to The Link for support can come from all walks of life. 

“We’ve had the CEO and we’ve had the homeless,” Betts said.

The question of “Who is my neighbor” is also better answered in The Link’s new mission statement, which was recently adopted to be more informative about what the organization is trying to do for the community and who it exists to serve. 

“We’ve worked really hard to establish a mission statement that better reflects who we are,” Betts said. 

The new mission statement for the organization is “The Link of Cullman County exists to build empowering & supportive relationships with our neighbors on the journey towards personal & relational wholeness.”

The Link’s former mission statement included a mention of poverty when discussing those who could be helped by the organization, and that may have limited some people from seeking out The Link’s assistance, Betts said. 

She said among the staff of The Link, the mention of poverty was never meant to refer only to financial needs, but also meant the organization could assist those who were lacking in their spiritual, mental or emotional needs, but that may not have been clear to those on the outside, so the word was removed from the new mission statement.

Betts said The Link’s mission and core values of encouragement and education haven’t changed, but the new statement should do a better job in letting people know who they are. 

“We believe that education is the way to make better changes in your life, because if you know better, you tend to do different,” she said. “And we believe that with encouragement, people are willing to take the next steps that they might not have without someone encouraging them.”

Betts said The Link is also seeing more neighbors in need of different types of assistance since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic.

She said the beginning of pandemic and the shutdowns earlier in the year caused The Link to see an influx of people who were in need of food or utility assistance, and while the organization still sees a steady number in need of those things, there is a growing number of people in need of mental or emotional support.

As the isolation from the virus has continued through the summer and into the fall, more and more people are feeling the effects on their psyches, and the classes and programs that The Link offers in those areas have been quickly filling up as soon as they are offered, Betts said. 

“Mental and emotional health have been a big need that we see here,” she said. “We’ve had to offer additional classes so we can keep the numbers low in the classroom.”

Homeless supply drive

The members of the area’s homeless population are also considered to be The Link’s neighbors, and as part of its ongoing mission to assist neighbors in need, the organization has partnered with the Saints Motorcycle Club and the Cullman Bowling Center to gather supplies for the area’s homeless residents.

Supplies that are being requested include tents, sleeping bags, gloves, ready-to-eat food items and cleaning supplies like soap, body wash, wipes and lotion.

Donations are welcome at the bowling alley throughout this week, and the supply drive will end on Nov. 6 with an event from 6-8 p.m. featuring live music from The Overtones and other attractions to encourage more people to come by and bring supplies that can help some of the people who are in need.

Mongrams Plus, located in Cullman’s Warehouse District, will also be welcoming supply donations on Nov. 7 during its Customer Appreciation Celebration.

For those who want to give in another way, the Saints are taking monetary donations through a GoFundMe campaign, which can be found at their Facebook page, Saints M/C Alabama Cullman County.

More information about the programs and services offered by The Link of Cullman County, as well as a link to volunteer or donate, can be found at its website, linkingcullman.org.