October 2005

A look at the services LSS offers in North-Central and Northeastern Minnesota. Approximately 30 percent of both the LSS employees and its $69 Million budget are applied to services in these areas of Minnesota. Click here to learn more!

LSS Housing Services staff in Minneapolis and their volunteer team celebrated the start of the 2005-2006 school year with a big party for families served by LSS and others in the immediate neighborhood at 24th Street and Park Avenue. Surviving the summer and successfully getting all your ducks in a row is a major accomplishment. Many of our families agree.  Click here to read more!

When Ann Domagala saw an advertisement in the Brainerd Daily Dispatch about shopping for seniors who couldn't do it themselves, she thought she'd give it a try. After the one-hour training session, she realized that this would be a way that she could "give back" without creating scheduling conflicts with her work as a veterinarian.  Click here to find out more!

Remarks by Mark A. Peterson, President/CEO, at the Lutheran Social Service of Minnesota Gala Dinner to Celebrate 140 years of service to Minnesotans.  Click here to learn more!

While the September Board of Directors' Meeting had all the normal components, the setting moved to the Radisson Hotel on the University of Minnesota campus. And more than 350 of LSS' strongest supporters and good friends joined the Board and senior-level staff to mark the 140th anniversary of LSS at a gala reception, dinner and celebration. Click here to read more!

The 19th Annual Camp Knutson Quilt Auction set a record by raising over $53,000 for the Camp on Saturday, August 13. 163 quilts, made by various quilters from all over Minnesota, were auctioned off at the event, sponsored by the Paul Bunyan Regional Auxiliary of Lutheran Social Service.  Click here to find out more!

We don't see stories in the news very often anymore about HIV/AIDS, except when the news is about people in other countries facing this disease. What about here in the U.S? Or even in Minnesota?  Click here to learn more!

The door to the Renaissance House looks like any other door on First Street, and like that door, the youths inside look like any other youths. Except these kids are teetering near homelessness, and that door is the difference between security and ruin.  Click here to read more!

Soon enough it will be the season for the "I wants" to kick into overdrive in millions of homes across the United States. With more than $220 billion at stake during the holiday season, companies will pull out all the stops to be the product that completes the well-worn phrase "I want a (blank)!"  Click here to find out more!

LSS 140th Anniversary gala was an event to remember, but it was not the only event that recently celebrated LSS and its 140-year history. Members of the LSS Leadership Circle (a group of supporters who give $5,000 or more each year to LSS) participated in the annual Leadership Circle Retreat the following day at the LSS offices in south Minneapolis.  Click here to learn more!

Would you like to make a direct difference in the life of a family this holiday season? Become a sponsor through Sponsor A Family, a joint program of Lutheran Social Service and Catholic Charities of St. Paul and Minneapolis. As a sponsor, you shop for gifts personally requested by a family who is receiving services through our case managers. Click here to read more!

Of all the congregations in Minnesota that are special to LSS, Vasa Lutheran Church holds a unique place. It was at Vasa, in 1865, where Pastor Eric Norelius and his congregation rescued an orphaned family of four Swedish children and began Lutheran social ministry in Minnesota. It's the congregation where LSS finds its beginning. Click here to find out more!

Matching gifts are a great way to make your financial gifts go further. Usually offered through the Community Affairs or Human Resource departments, many companies offer matching gift programs that recognize an employee's community involvement and volunteerism with cash donations to specific nonprofit organizations. If your organization participates, please remember LSS!  Click here to learn more!

This is to alert you to a new, short term giving opportunity created as part of the Katrina Hurricane Relief Tax Package (H.R. 3768) and broadened to encourage continued giving to other charities.  Click here to read more!