Rockford, IA

The Rockford Visions group has streamlined its procedures by establishing a committee charged with fundraising and financial reporting. A representative of this group will communicate the overall Rockford Visions progress, making achievements more visible to the community. The treasurer of Rockford Visions will regularly report financial standings to all interested parties. We hope and expect this to result in more awareness and buy-in from the entire Rockford community.

In a recent Rockford Visions committee heads meeting, more precise leadership and direction was established. A concise list of the people who will be involved in the financial interests of Rockford Visions, as well as the fundraising interests, was documented.

A visitor to this meeting, the 2007-2008 RRMR student body president, presented to the group the importance of connecting with the community youth and tapping them as an energetic resource to accomplish much of the volunteer work that will be needed in coming years. The young visitor, who is headed off to college this fall, plans to continue discussions and follow-up with the 2008-2009 student body president in order to establish a strong tradition of volunteerism in the RRMR community.

The credentials of this young person are very impressive, and include establishing the Corn Bowl Alliance, an agreement among the student councils of Corn Bowl Conference schools to establish a higher standard of community and world servitude, and a challenge to keep the torch burning so it can be passed to younger students as those in leadership positions graduate and move on.

The committee heads were quite impressed by this visitor, who is wise beyond his years, and who also strongly advised the group to establish set protocols for fundraising and finance reporting, as well as consistent reporting of progress as a visual to the community. Also suggested were ways to connect with youth to make it easier for them to step in and help.

The group of energized Rockford citizens that has stepped forward to work through the Horizons program calls itself Rockford Visions. Made up of several committees that target certain needs related to poverty eradication, they’ve decided there’s a need to form a new committee - one that solely raises funds. It will likely consist of a person or persons from each of the existing committees, and will decide how funds will be raised and how they’ll be spent. One citizen has agreed to bookkeep the funds and has created a voucher system for receipts and disbursements of funds raised and used for Horizons / Rockford Visions projects. The Rockford Visions funds will be filtered through the City of Rockford as a line item in their budget, enabling us to obtain 501(c)(3) status at no cost.