T&E Care Programs

T&E Care runs two basic categories of programs – those that handle immediate problems, and those that attempt to help a family have a more successful future.  Many of these programs are listed below.  While many programs overlap in both categories, our basic breakdown includes:

Programs that Address Today’s Needs Today

• Home & Hearth Program (including housing assistance, utilities, and general food and clothing needs); it also includes:
  • School Lunch Program (ongoing support for lunch assistance for area students)
  • “Stuff” Program (housewares and furniture needs)
• Transportation Assistance Program
• Medical, Mental Health Counseling, and/or Dental Assistance
• Holiday Gifts and Special Meals Program

Programs that Invest Today For A Better Tomorrow

• College Assistance Program (tuition and book assistance; mentoring and general guidance)
• Summer Camp Program (help with tuition for summer camps)
• School Supplies Program
• Computers for students (refurbished computers for local families and students; new laptops for college students)
• Resume/Job Interview Preparation
• Budgeting Assistance

See below for a more complete description of some of these programs.

Home and Hearth Program

College Assistance Program (CAP)

T&E Care recognizes the fact that college tuition is rising faster than any other expenses, while at the same time government financial assistance programs are low on funds. We believe that if students are working hard in high school (and continue to work hard in college), but their family struggles to cover the cost of rent and food, let alone college tuition, then we should try to help. This is clearly a very expensive program to run, but the benefits can be enormous. Besides helping with some tuition costs, assistance can be given for the cost of books, a new laptop, and other college related fees and costs. We also offer mentoring assistance to students who could use some extra guidance. Mentors are usually volunteers who have been through the college experience with their own kids, no special training is needed (although clearances are required). This can be an extremely valuable way to give back to the local community. The kids with mentors are the ones we see make the most progress!

To make a donation go to our Donation page. To offer to be a mentor, please contact us at CAP@tecare.org. If you believe you are a student who might qualify for this program, please check our criteria on the CAP page.

School Meal Assistance Program 

In early October, 2008, T&E Care launched a program to help T/E School District students have some extra funds to help cover lunches and/or breakfasts at school. This program is designed to help families who make just too much so they don’t qualify for the federal free and reduced meal program. The income levels to qualify for the free and reduced program are incredibly low. For example, for the 16/17 school year, to qualify for a free lunch a family of 4 cannot make more than $24,300/year. $24,300 a year? Are you kidding? Who can live on that kind of income? Of course they can’t afford lunch for their 2 kids! They do qualify for a reduced lunch if that same family makes up to $44,955. But what happens if they make $45,000? They pay full price, that’s the problem. The cost of lunch at CHS jumps from the reduced price of 40¢/meal to $3.00+ for the basic lunch. That’s a big jump in lunch prices as compared to a very small difference in income.

Our program will help put extra money into each qualifying child’s meal account each month. We are guaranteeing a minimum of $20/month/child to start the program, but in the 2017/18 school year we offered $35/mo for elementary students, $45/mo for middle school students, and $55/mo for high school students. We evaluate our funding each year based on our resources and the number of students being supported. What a great response we’ve heard from the families we support. Their kids can actually eat lunches without it depleting the family’s budget.

If you would like to make a donation to T&E Care’s School Meal Assistance Program, please go to our Donation page. Please include a note with the donation to ear-mark it for this program.

If you know of a student who might qualify for this assistance, please let us know. Thanks very much for your continued support to help local families in need. Questions? Email us at lunchhelp@tecare.org.

Summer Camp Program

Each summer T&E Care helps some local kids attend summer camp by covering their tuition costs. Most local kids get to go to soccer camp or Future Stars or art camp for a week or two, and then go on a vacation as well. Fun stuff! But many of the kids in the families we support just sit home day after day throughout the summer. There is no camp and certainly no vacation. Paying for a week or two of camp is a special treat. We also like to offer help with transportation for some of these kids. The parents work, or they don’t even own a car, and even if we pay for the camp the kids still can’t get there. Each year we have a few kids who needed rides, all to local camps so it didn’t take a lot of volunteers. If you could help out in the future as a camp driver please send a note to us at camp@tecare.org. We will collect names, and then once we get the schedules for the kids (later in May or early June) we’ll try to match up your availability with the required dates.

Please note that all drivers need appropriate insurance and will be required to get a criminal background check. These are very easy to get, and we can cover the modest fees if needed. Thanks very much. Information on the steps to get this background check can be found on the Volunteer Page.

If you would like to make a donation to help fund this special program go to our Donation page. If you know of a camp that might be able to offer a free scholarship, please let us know and we’ll make the connection!  Many thanks for helping to give some local kid

s a chance for a special summer.

Questions?  Contact us at camp@tecare.org.

T&E Transportation Assistance Program   

T&E Care tries to help families who have come to us with a request for assistance. Because we cannot be a regular source of financial help for them, we work with families to get past their current hurdle and become self-sufficient. For some families, that hurdle is simply the need for a reliable car that can get them back and forth to work. For some families, auto maintenance or auto repairs are luxuries that are low on their list of their priorities, especially when food, clothing and paying utilities hold such importance.

There are a few ways you can help with this program. If you have a car to donate. If you have a connection with a local auto retailer or repair shop we are always on the lookout for a good reliable repair shop that will help our families maintain an automobile so they can be assured that they will have a reliable way to get back and forth to work to earn a living. If you have a connection with an insurance company. Even one free oil change per business per year would be a huge help. 

Please see our Donating Cars & Services page or contact us at car@tecare.org to tell us how you can help us out, or if you need assistance from this program.

Computers for Kids (and Parents, too)  

“Having a computer in college, is like having air to breathe.”  This is what one student recently stated when given a new laptop for college, through T&E Care’s Computers for Kids Program. We provide refurbished computers for kids and parents in the T/E area so they can do school work, apply for jobs and sometimes even work from home. We provide new laptops for any Conestoga High School students who qualify for our College Assistance Program so they can increase the odds of having success at college. Clearly in this day and age of schooling, having a computer is just as important as having a pencil and paper.

If you can donate a computer (especially laptops) – please check here for the criteria we need for the unit to be helpful to us. We have a great IT team that will get the computer ready to be handed out again. Thanks to the Foundation for Learning In T/E (FLITE) for their recent grants to help with the cost of some of the new laptops.  Additional financial donations for this program are always welcome.

If you need a computer please check here for the qualifications needed.

Budgeting, Interview, Job Assistance

We don’t have any formal programs here, but we are always willing to offer budgeting assistance to a family sometimes that’s all that is needed to turn a difficult situation around. The same might be true for job assistance,  just knowing how to put a resume together, or to do some practice interviews, can be a huge help to some folks. If you have financial or HR skills to offer, please let us know. And even more importantly if you have leads on any jobs we always appreciate that information. We can pass it on and hopefully someone will get lucky!

“Stuff” Program

Part of our Home and Heath Program involves helping families who need “stuff”. From time to time families we support request help getting furniture or other household supplies. Instead of using their hard-earned money to buy a couch or table or dresser, we found that by asking community members if they had an item they’d be willing to donate, the answer was almost always yes! We are not a “Craig’s List” for the movement of tons of stuff (that’s a job in itself), but we do help out quite a few local families. We have no storage, so if an offer of “stuff” is made and we have no requests, then we suggestions for other charities that might take your items. You can check out these suggestions on the different pages under Donations for: Stuff, Clothing, Children’s Items or Food. If you need a specific item or have an item to offer, let us know at stuff@tecare.org and we’ll see if we can make a match with one of our offers.

Holiday Drive – School Supply Drive – Holiday Dinners

The Holiday Drive and the School Supply Drive are the two big drives T&E Care volunteers run each year. The Holiday Dinners are special dinners prepared at Thanksgiving and also later in December. If you’d like information on these special events please check them out on our Events Tab.  We always appreciate donations and volunteers for these important events.