Community Corner

Community Roundtable Honors A Kid's Place in Brandon

A Kid's Place in Brandon was recognized as this year's Non-Profit of the Year by the Community Roundtable at its Community Affairs Dinner at Center Place.

 

A Kid's Place in Brandon received the Non-Profit of the Year Award at the Community Roundtable's annual Community Affairs Dinner.

The event was held at Center Place on Feb. 21.

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In attendance to receive the award was Dottie Berger MacKinnon, the founder of A Kid's Place, and Virginia Johnson, the shelter's executive director.

A Kid’s Place, on Lithia Pinecrest Road, just east of Lumsden Road, serves as a safe, stable and nurturing environment for abused, abandoned and neglected children who have been removed from their homes by the courts.

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MacKinnon said it was Judge Martha Cook who noted the need for A Kid's Place in Brandon.

"As soon as we said we would build this shelter, then DCF [the Department of Children and Families] said, 'We've been asking for 15 years for this and nobody ever stepped up to the plate," MacKinnon said. "Well, the reason for that, first of all, in a downturn economy, nobody was dumb enough to try to go out there to raise money to do what we did. But we did it."

And "the reason we did it in Brandon," MacKinnon added, "is because we knew there was nothing like this in Brandon. We knew that the Brandon people would come out and support us and you guys have been amazing."

Children staying at A Kid’s Place reside in a home-like setting with live-in house parents, and siblings are housed in the same home to provide consistency for the family unit. The average age of children served by A Kid’s Place is 5; the average length of stay is 65 days.

MacKinnon credited Johnson and her staff for making "this whole ting work."

Johnson noted that having been opened for two- and a-half years, a Kid's Place has served some 500 children and more than 200 families.

"This community has been so generous to us and A Kid's Place, helping us with all kinds of volunteer efforts, your used clothing, donations, time and energy," Johnson said. "We could not be more pleased with the help that we have gotten form this community."

A Kid's Place received a $500 check from the Community Roundtable and will be considered the group's spotlight charity for the year, with additional fundraising forthcoming.

In related news, the Trey Curry Foundation has pledged a $400,000 donation to A Kid's Place in Brandon, leading to the naming of the fifth home at the residential care facility for children in need of emergency housing.

Clifton "Trey" Curry III would have turned 24 on Jan. 7. His untimely death in 2008 led to the establishment by his family of a foundation to help Brandon children in need.

That foundation, on Feb. 24, will be represented by Trey's parents and siblings for the unveiling of The Trey Curry House at A Kid's Place on Lithia Pinecrest Road in Brandon.

(For more, see, Trey Curry Foundation Donates $400,000 to A Kid's Place.)


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