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HomeMy WebLinkAbout20010707.tiff RESOLUTION RE: APPROVE APPLICATION FOR CHILD CARE QUALITY EXPANSION GRANT AND AUTHORIZE CHAIR TO SIGN WHEREAS, the Board of County Commissioners of Weld County, Colorado, pursuant to Colorado statute and the Weld County Home Rule Charter, is vested with the authority of administering the affairs of Weld County, Colorado, and WHEREAS, the Board has been presented with an Application for the Child Care Quality Expansion Grant from the County of Weld, State of Colorado, by and through the Board of County Commissioners of Weld County, on behalf of the Department of Social Services, United Way of Weld County, and Aims Community College, to the Colorado Department of Human Services, with terms and conditions being as stated in said revised application, and WHEREAS, after review, the Board deems it advisable to approve said application, a copy of which is attached hereto and incorporated herein by reference. NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED by the Board of County Commissioners of Weld County, Colorado, ex-officio Board of Social Services, that the Application for the Child Care Quality Expansion Grant from the County of Weld, State of Colorado, by and through the Board of County Commissioners of Weld County, on behalf of the Department of Social Services, United Way of Weld County, and Aims Community College, to the Colorado Department of Human Services be, and hereby is, approved. BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED by the Board that the Chair be, and hereby is, authorized to sign said application. The above and foregoing Resolution was, on motion duly made and seconded, adopted by the following vote on the 14th day of March A.D., 2001. BOARD OF C UNTY COMMISSIONERS WELD CO TY, COLORADO ATTEST: � � �� E�`� l 1A<Cr/ M. J. eile, Chair Weld County Clerk to th J :="ti'• 4/417 Glenn Glenn Vaad, r Deputy Clerk to the Boa !j' EXCUSED DATE OF SIGNING (AYE) Willi Jerke • PR VED AS/FORM: D vi E. Lon17 ^ unyAttmrney „ 1'�^ Robert D. Masden�l� 2001-0707 SS0028 „ n-1 DEPARTMENT OF SOCIAL SERVICES PO BOX A GREELEY,CO 80632 'Cr:: WEBSITE:www.co.weld.co.us i t" i. IS/inlet i Ei Alet RANDUMAdministration and Public Assistance(970)352-1551. Child Support(970)352-6933 II Ile TO: M.J. Geile, Chair Date: March 9, 2001 COLORADO Board of County Commissioners FR: Judy A. Griego, Director, Social Services C� cn a G� J U I RE: Child Care Quality Expansion Grant Enclosed for Board approval is a Child Care Quality Expansion Grant to be submitted by the Weld County Department of Social Services to the Colorado Department of Human Services. This grant is being submitted on behalf of United Way of Weld County and its subcontractor, Aims Community College. This grant submittal constitutes a second year request for funding and is a competitive grant submittal. The major provisions of the grant request are as follows: 1. The grant period is from July 1, 2001 through June 30, 2002. 2. Total amount of funding requested from Federal and State resources is $57,530. A total amount of In-kind to be provided by United Way and Aims Community College is $18,755. 3. United Way and Aims Community College propose to provide activities as follows: A. Continue recruiting 20 new child care home providers. This major activity will include offering a minimum of 12 pre-licensing orientations/training with local food programs and offering the mentoring program to potential providers who are using a pre-licensing video. B. Provide continuation of training opportunities for licensed home child care providers beyond pre-licensing training by developing 6 hours of preschool child care video. C. Create and implement professional development plans for child care centers' professionals by providing academic advising of providers. D. Continue and expand the six month mentor program. E. Continue to increase the community awareness and access to information about choosing quality child care in Weld County by targeting bi-lingual and low-income families to receive such information and by building a web site. If you have any questions, please telephone me at extension 6510. 2001-0707 COLORADO DIVISION OF CHILD CARE GRANT APPLICATION•PART ill Page 1 of 1 APPLICATION SUMMARY FORM • County Department (please give full departmentalname):Weld County Department of Social Services Address: P .0. Bo x A City/StateiZip: Greeley, CO 80631 County Department Contact Person: Judy Griego Phone Number: 970-352-1551x6510 FaxNumber:970-353-5215 E-mail Address: griegoja@co .weld.co .usountRequested: $57 , 530 Federal Employer Identification Number(FEIN): Funds will be used for (check all that apply) New child care facility startup Minor renovation to meet licensing requirements Expansion of existing facility X Equipment/supplies _X- Training X Consumer Education X Resource and referral x Provider retention X Provider/staff training X Costs to meet licensing requirements Staff/operating: Detail how you plan to continue staff costs after grant ends in your response to Section D -Continuation X Expanding quality of care in target community(ies) CHECK ALL THAT APPLY TO THE PROPOSED PROJECT X Early childhood program Children of teen parents X School-age(Out of School) program Children of homeless families X- Children with special needs x Infants/Toddlers Public school site Colorado Pre-school Program Migrant and seasonal workers Children in Chapter 1 local school districts X Private-for-profit center Family resource center/school X- Evening/weekend care x Full-week care • Wrap-around child care(part-day) _ Other(specify): - Area of high crime or poverty I certify that the information provided in this application is, to the best of my knowledge, complete and accurate. If the award is made. the applicant commits to project implementation in keeping with the proposal content and budget and to adhere to all assurances. certifications. terms. conditions, and other requirements contained in this application and in the:RFA. Authorized name and signature: TS. J. Celle, Chair 2/2i d1Lc 1 03/14/2001 Print Name Signature Date Section A: Need For The Project and Expected Impacted/Benefits Areas to be served and gaps: Weld County has 160,000 people (EDAP, 1998), of whom 28% (@44,000) are children under the age of 18, according to Kids Count in CO, 1997/98. Our county report from the Colorado Children's Campaign states there are 7,392 children needing care, with only 3,972 licensed slots available. Child Care Resource and Referral (CCR&R) located at United Way of Weld County works with 315 of the 389 licensed child care centers and home providers throughout the county. In 2000, CCR&R received 1,174 calls (a 14% increase from 1999) from parents seeking assistance in locating child care. Despite our recruiting efforts, our child care homes total 277, dropping 16 homes from 1999. Our County also lost one center in 2000, dropping us from 39 centers in 1999 to 38 centers in 2000. We expect two new centers to open in 2001. In one week two centers had 3 staff quit to go to higher paying positions. Basically, our recruiting doesn't keep us even. Last year, there were NO infant slots available in child care homes. To date, four of the 12 areas in the County(Ft. Lupton, Erie, Hudson/Keenesburg, and Ault/Pierce/Nunn)have almost no vacancies and we just recruited for two of these four areas. Our unemployment rate for 2000 was 3.23 and we continue to fall 27% below the state average of per capita income coming in at $21,723 compared to $29,888 for Colorado. Weld County continues to be one of the largest and poorest counties in the state. Last year, child care issues were so great that a Memorandum of Understanding was created between the Weld County Government, United Way of Weld County(UWWC), Aims Community College, Centennial Board of Cooperative Educational Services (BOCES), School District Six, City of Greeley and the City of Evans to study the care and supervision of our children and youth. A community wide effort, the task force committees analyzed studies and conducted research to determine areas of need faced by our children. (Copies available at UWWC) The committees for Children Five Years and Under and Children Six to Twelve Years of Age recommended that, among others, CCR&R continue and expand it's programs on recruiting quality licensed child care home providers and educating the community about choosing quality child care. Serious gaps that were noted included the lack of before and after school care programs, infant care, rural care, off-hour care and programs for special needs children all of the areas that were focused on in last year's Expansion Grant. These gaps in the availability and access to quality licensed child care providers throughout our County and particularly in the rural areas must be addressed. In order to do so,we propose to increase the availability of affordable child care for low income working families in several ways: • Continue to increase the number of child care centers and home providers in Weld County through recruitment, incentives and training. • Continue to retain child care providers through professional development plans, education/training, mentoring and incentives for serving targeted gaps in care. • Continue to improve the overall awareness of choosing quality child care through a Public Relations effort, focusing on bilingual and low-income working families. • Improve access to child care home and center information by building a website for easy access to open child care slots and information on choosing quality child care. • Explore the Child Care Task Force recommendations to start a child care network/center. We will focus this on special needs children. • Increase the quality and quantity of out of school care by studying the gaps in before 1 and after school care and developing a course focused on care for school age children. • Increase the quality of child care throughout Weld County by providing quality assessment training to providers. • Develop distance learning material for preschool and school age care. Last year,we received money to offer training, financial incentives,public relations campaign to recruit and retain quality child care providers throughout Weld County. We targeted infant care, rural care,bilingual care, and off-hour care (evenings and weekends) - areas that serve low-income families. Our initial grant has been very successful. Currently, Child Care Resource and Referral of United Way of Weld County(CCR&R)has recruited 17 child care home providers. Of these providers, 6 serve rural areas, 2 serve bilingual families, 4 are offering off-hour care, and take infants. Additionally, there have been two child care centers that have expanded to include 10 infant slots each. Of the 17 new recruits, all are matched to mentors for the initial 3 months and all have requested to continue in the 6 month mentoring program. This has added 34 infant/toddler slots, 34 before and after school slots and 68 toddler-preschool slots. Given the popularity and success of this program (so far, only one new recruit has dropped out and that is because her husband got a job out of state), we need to expand the recruiting and mentoring program. We currently offer orientation and assistance to potential new providers twice a month and are working with the local food programs to offer our training with their pre-licensing training. Additionally, Aims Community College supplied the tuition and incentive for 9 providers to take one, sometimes 2 courses. The pre-licensing video series will be completed and available to more potential providers, who we intend to target to receive our orientation and training along with the video information. Together, Aims and CCR&R created a public relations campaign for Weld County to educate employees about choosing quality child care. Posters and brochures and a bilingual insert are being distributed to major employers throughout Weld County. We also run weekly ads encouraging people to contact CCR&R to find out about choosing quality child care in 6 rural newspapers and 2 large local papers. CCR&R developed a checklist on choosing quality child care that is given to parents calling about child care availability. We are working with other agencies to create and deliver information to parents about summer child care options and activities. Other funding: United Way of Weld County(UWWC) will continue to provide funding to the Incentive Program. Additionally,UWWC will pick up the costs of re-printing the brochure, and continues to support staff time. Kodak has awarded Family Support Network a program of UWWC dollars to conduct research and to educate the community about child care issues in Weld County that can off-set some program expenses. Additionally, R.R. Donnelley will provide some incentive dollars to recruit child care providers. CORRA also provides money towards these efforts. Aims Community College has two Infant Toddler Quality Expansion grants, an Infant Toddler Quality Improvement grant from the state, Title V, and Head Start Partnership federal grants. These enable Aims to link training opportunities to child care providers. Last year, Aims served 20 providers from 9 centers and 1 home. Weld County continues to transfer the maximum amount of TANF funds to child care activities, focusing on low-income working families, and child welfare. The child care block grant allocation is not generating sufficient funding for Weld County to allow us to divert any funds from monthly subsidizes to expand child care services. Weld County's child care allocation dropped by about$230,000 between SFY00 and SFY01. Weld County has significantly 2 increased child care rates in recent years; however, Weld County was unable to increase such rates in 2001 because of factors noted above. Fortunately, in analyzing child care rates among the ten largest counties, Weld County is comparable or higher than the average child care rate distribution from DSS. Benefits to low income families: Our programs benefit low income and working parents by increasing the number of child care homes available throughout the county. Our target areas include recruiting for shift care and off-hour care, which will aid many low income families. Additional training for child care providers adds quality to programs for all children served, including low income families. Our collaboration with the Weld County Department of Social Services and their participation in committees that developed these programs furthers a low-income family's ability to have a voice in determining what before and after school care access they require in order to continue to be productive employees. We are translating information about choosing quality child care and financial subsidies which will benefit low income Spanish families. Grant money is essential: Expansion Grant Dollars are essential in our ability to assist low-income working families to access quality child care in rural settings and for bilingual and off- hour care. Currently, our efforts are barely keeping even. Your dollars will increase our efforts to recruit and retain providers. By using recognized rating scales (i.e. ITERS, ECERS, FCCRC, etc.) providers will acquire skills and knowledge of concrete quality indicators in their programs and have the information to make actual improvements to their quality. Section B: Program Description,Administrative Capacity and Accountability Goals and Objectives: This year's Expansion Grant will target expanding child care home care in rural areas, off-hour care,bilingual care, infant care, and before and after school care. We also intend to increase community awareness of quality child care and provider ability to provide quality child care. All goals and objectives are to be complete by June 30, 2002. Other timelines are noted. In general, all providers for recruitment will be chosen based on their ability to meet one of our targeted areas: * Rural care * Before/After School * Off-hour care * Bi-lingual care * Infant care This year, we are collaborating more with Aims by connecting with the potential providers who check out Aims' pre-licensing video. We hope to recruit some for the mentoring program. Quality assessment training will assist providers in recognizing and implementing quality indicators. We will use the Infant Toddler Rating Scale, Early Childhood Rating Scale, Family Child Care Rating Scale and School Age Care Rating Scale. The website will create even more access to information about before and after school programs, quality issues and availability. UWWC is the home of Helpline, the countywide information and referral service. CCR&R has recently converted to NACCRAware—a software program that has the capability to offer child care information to the general public. CCR&R's website will link to Helpline. UWWC will provide the server and host the site. The costs we have listed are to create the website. The following charts list goals, objectives, timelines, and accountability. 3 Goal 1: Increase the number of new child care home providers in Weld County. Objective 1: Continue recruiting new child care providers through incentives and training to create 80 new slots in our targeted areas. Providers will be selected based on what targeted needs are being met. Activities Timing Measurement Recruit 20 new child care home Beginning July 75% (15)will be recruited providers in 12 months and offer them 2001 and use the incentive dollars. pre-licensing incentives Work with local food programs to Beginning July 75% (9)training/ offer a minimum of 12 pre-licensing 2001 orientations will be given. orientations/trainings Offer access to the mentoring program Beginning July 100% of Weld County to potential providers who are using 2001 people checking out the the pre-licensing video video will receive information. Goal 2: Continue to retain child care providers. Objective 1: Provide continuation of training opportunities for licensed home child care providers beyond pre-licensing training. Activities Timing Measurement Develop 6 hours of preschool child July 2001 — Six hours of preschool video care video including support materials Jan. 2002 training and support and assessment of learning materials ready for components (see attached list of video dissemination topics) Research and develop 6 hours July 2001 — 6 hours of video training and videotape training for school-age child Jan. 2002 support materials developed care including support materials and for out of school care for assessment of learning school age children Pilot each training segment with 10 Jan.2002 — Evaluation/feedback students for a total of 30 students March 2002 regarding effectiveness of training materials from each segment Conduct follow-up survey with April 2002 — Specific data to verify providers to assess retention May 2002 retention 4 Goals 2: Continue to retain child care providers. Objective 2: Create and implement a Professional Development Plan for child care centers professionals. Activities Timing Measurement Provide academic advising for July 2001 — Approved PDP for 20 providers to determine their Sept. 2001 participants Professional Development Plan goals and how to meet those goals Provide tuition, books, conference fees, cost of substitute coverage, Grant funds distributed and/or child care costs for successful Throughout grant including stipend and completion of PDP. A stipend will be period PDP's completed awarded upon successful completion of the PDP Objective 3: Continue and expand the 6 month mentor program. Activities Timing Measurement Continue to recruit, train and match 15 Begin July 2001 Mentors will be matched mentors with new providers for 6 and paid months Offer monthly training/support groups Beginning July 10 support groups/trainings for mentors and their mentees 2001 will be completed Goal 3: Continue to increase the community awareness and access to information about choosing quality child care in Weld County. Objective 1: Target Bi-lingual and low-income families to receive information on quality child care. Activities Timing Measurement Translate, print and distribute 100 June 2002 Brochures/posters done and posters in Spanish and 2000 distributed flyers on choosing quality child care in Spanish Objective 2: Build a web site to access information about before and after school programs and child care availability throughout Weld County Activities Timing Measurement Use NACCRAWARE to link to October 2001 Website up and being used United Way of Weld County's Helpline to build a CCR&R website Publicize our resources, including March 2002 Information on website child care information, brochures and checklists on the web site 5 Goal 4: Explore the Child Care and Youth Supervision Task Force recommendation to start a child care provider network/center. Objective 1: Study gaps in services to children with special needs. Activities Timing Measurement Research the gaps in quality child care Begin August Complete January 2002 for children with special needs 2001 Create a collaboration and plan to Begin February Plan complete by April address the gaps in child care for 2002 2002 special needs children identified by the research Goal 5: Increase the quality and quantity of out of school time care by studying the gaps in before and after school care and developing a course focused on care for school age children. Objective 1: Study the gaps in before and after school care in Weld County. Activities Timing Measurement Survey current licensed and exempt July 2001 — Completed needs out of school time providers for Oct 2001 assessment with specific training needs recommendations Objective 2: Develop a course focused on care for school age children during out of school time. Activities Timing Measurement Research best practices and program July —Sept.2001 Comparison and selection models for out of school time for of models of school age school age children care programs Develop curriculum, syllabus, rubrics July — Sept.2001 Curriculum submitted for for evaluation for 30 hour course approval Pilot course for 15 students providing Sept.2001—Feb Course approved by CCC them with tuition and incentive 2002 program manager Spring quarter Evaluation of course by 2002 students; tuition and incentive 6 Goal 6: Increase the quality of child care throughout Weld County. Objective 1: Provide quality assessment training to center and home providers who participated in the training component(s of this project. Activities Timing Measurement Enroll students in ITERS, ECERS, Jan 2002 - Successful completion of FCCERS, SACERS course (1 credit June 2002 course by students with each) written plan for implementing changes to improve quality Provide tuition,books and incentive to Jan 2002 — Funds distributed students June 2002 Closing the gaps identified in Section A: This project will directly impact the gaps identified in Section A that prevent low-income families from accessing quality child care. We are focusing many goals on home care because it is more afforable. We will study before and after school care needs and then recruit based on those findings. In order to serve low-income working families better, we have a DSS representative on our CCR&R and Special Needs Committees. The public relations campaign will educate the community about choosing quality child care and will specifically give the community access to information about before and after school child care and child care in rural areas and for our other targeted areas. This increases the hours that people will have this information available to them. Low-income families will be able to access this through computers at libraries and at work. Our project will also improve accessibility to training and improve quality of care in Weld County. Our pre-licensing video expands the availability of training. Providers have requested specialized training for care of infants, toddlers, preschoolers and school age children. Some providers cannot access training outside their homes or communities so the distance education format will accommodate their needs. Goal Measurement: (see table) Timeframes: (see table) How providers are selected: Providers will be selected based on their willingness and ability to address targeted areas listed above. Only licensed providers will be selected. Outreach activities: We will solicit participants for training with written invitations to submit a Professional Development Plan. We will follow-up applicants with academic advising. We will contact out of school providers and licensed child care providers for their continuing training needs. 7 County DSS plans for overseeing and evaluating and monitoring this project: DSS will have representation in developing our studies of before and after school care and care requirements for special needs children in the county. A monthly review of the progress of the project will occur, along with quarterly reports. Licensing issues: Our project addresses initial licensing issues for potential new child care home providers through our orientation and pre-licensing training done in conjunction with local food programs. Children impacted: Our project will directly impact the 80 children who will fill the slots made available by recruiting 20 new child care home providers. A larger number of children stand to benefit from our campaign on choosing quality child care. Since every parent who calls CCR&R for child care information receives our checklist on choosing quality child care,we are potentially impacting a minimum of 1,000 children a year. Children in need of before and after school programs in rural areas will also benefit from our research and recruitment of care and children with special needs will reap the rewards of our research in following years as we develop collaborative efforts to meet their unique needs throughout the county. The quality assessment segment of the proposal benefits all children in child care where quality improvement is implemented. The number of children impacted with the Aims training component will be significant. We plan to limit participation of center personnel to 2 per center, in an effort to serve more centers. We will track licensed capacity of centers and homes served through this training component to report numbers of children impacted. Staffing: United Way of Weld County: Judy Kron, Director; Rudy Pisano, CCR&R Coordinator; Kathy Brunson, FSN Coodinator; Anne Erebia, Administrative Assistant Aims Community Staff: Kathy Hamblin, MA: Program Director for Family and Life Education: Judy Gump, MA, Assistant Professor: Rebecca Ward, Assistant Professor Program monitoring: Contracters will submit quarterly reports, billing, and progress reports toward stated goals to the County Department of Social Services. Section C: Coordination, Collaboration and Local Match Collaboration: Our project is the result of a unified effort to collaborate and coordinate services to provide quality child care throughout the county. Four committees advise our program, these committees are: • The CCR&R committee, made up of representatives from child care home providers association representatives, DSS, child care center directors association representatives, school districts and BOCES staff, agencies that provide screening, healthcare and services to special needs children, and parents. 8 • The Family Support Network Committee is made up of business representatives from large to small organizations and provide support to the public relations project. This committee's purpose is to educate the local business community about the issues surrounding child care and the impact those issues have on employers. Recruitment needs are high for businesses. • The CCR&R Special Needs Committee made up of representatives from schools and agencies who work in the area of providing services to children with special needs. • The Aims Community College Early Childhood Professions Advisory Committee is made up of child care providers, trainers and community members. Other successful local collaborations include the Weld County Child Care and Youth Supervision Task Force described in Section A. This Task Force had members who wanted to continue on with the recommendations join the CCR&R committee. The Weld County Child Abuse Coalition that has been active in our community since 1989. The Children's Festival collaboration effort is in its 20th year. United Way and the NCMC Hospital Foundation are partnering to bring Dr. Perry to Weld County this spring. Coordination: We continue to coordinate CCR&R services, as well as the activities outlined in this project through our UWWC and Aims Partnership. Local Match: We will supplement funding of this project through United Way of Weld County, Colorado Office of Resource and Referral Agencies, Aims community College and a Kodak grant, R.R. Donnelley, and other grants. Our in-kind and cash match exceeds the required level and includes the majority of staffing costs, space at Aims, and United Way of Weld County,bookkeeping and office materials. Aims has Carl D. Perkins development funds, as well as general Aims funds. Section D: Plan for Continuation after Grant Ends Community Support: Our public relations efforts will assist in building community support. The members of the various committees who oversee this project will also contribute to ensure this project can be expanded to meet the growing needs of our county. Plans for continuing funding: UWWC is committed to serving children in Weld County. A Children's Initiative is being kicked off in 2001 to increase time and funding to children. Since CCR&R and the Family Support Network and the Special Needs Committee are all under the UWWC,who continues to increase their support. Our business connections will also help to pick up some of the public relations costs and our initial incentive program will be funded by employers to recruit shift care for their employees. CORRA funding continues to be available. Tuition, grants, and potential funding from Aims Foundation are possibilities to continue the programs. 9 Section E: Budget Aims Training Budget Request Request Match Goal 2, Objective 1 Tuition, stipend for 20 students (6 credits per student @ $29 per $ 3,480 credit) Incentive for 20 students @ $50 per student 1,000 Child care, substitute costs 600 Goal 2, Objective 3 Preschool distance learning—6 hours $50 duplication fee X 10 sets $ 500 Curriculum development and support(60 hours@$20 per hour) 1,200 Materials and cash incentive (cassette tape @ $10 and incentive 600 @ $50 for 10 students) School Age distance learning—6 hours Video development(3hours @ $1600) $ 4,800 Supplemental materials development (60 hours @ $20) 1,200 Materials and cash incentive for students (Activities book @ $25 +incentive @ $50 per student x 10 students) 750 Video tape duplication 340 Goal 4 Survey community needs for school age care curriculum $ 200 Course development 30 hours (Perkins funds-new course, $7,500 (10:1 x 30 hours x $25) Pilot curriculum: tuition, materials and incentive for 10 students ($29 x3 credits +$50 materials+ $50 incentive x 10 students) 1,870 Goal 5 Tuition (1 credit), books incentive for 10 students in each quality $ 1,560 assessment course ($29 x 40 students x 1 credit) Marketing $ 500 Coordination time - .20 FTE (.20 x 32,000) $ 6,400 TOTAL $25,000 $7,500 10 Section E: Budget cont. United Way of Weld County CCR&R Budget Request Request Match Incentive Program Stipend for 4 recruits (300 each—the rest are cash matches) $ 1,200 $4,800 Incentive for 4 mentors @ $ 155 per mentor 1,820 1,155 Mentor Programs 15 x $455 $ 6,825 15 x $475 7,125 15 x $100 for training 1,500 Public Relations 200 Posters in Spanish $ 600 2000 Brochures in Spanish 1,500 5000 Recruitment flyers 500 Recruitment ads 2,360 Staffing and Supplies Personnel $ 5,000 $ 5,000 Supplies 300 100 Postage 300 200 TOTAL for UWWC $29,030 $11,255 DSS administrative $ 3,500 TOTAL for Aims $25,000 $ 7,500 TOTAL $57,530 $18,755 11 Hello