Community Help Finder: Kindness Connected

We are proud to launch Community Help Finder to help those in need connect with assistance providers in their local communities. Why? The economy may be doing better for some but many Americans continue to need support. Consider these statistics:

• Almost 40 million Americans live in poverty. (Census Bureau)

• Over 41 million people in America face hunger. Nearly 13 million of those hungry are children. (U.S. Department of Agriculture)

• More than half a million people in America are known to be homeless on any given night. (National Alliance to End Homelessness)

• The number of disconnected youth in the U.S. without work or out of school is estimated to be nearly 4.5 million or 1 in 9 teens and young adults. (Social Science Research Council)

As sobering as these numbers are, they do not capture the fear and uncertainty that poverty, hunger, homelessness, and other problems that individuals and families in need personally experience. Its these individuals and families that we want to reach most.

Assistance providers such as non-profit organizations, charitable organizations, and local and state governments have programs have programs in place to combat these trends. However, it is often difficult to search through the multiple layers of organizations to find the right resource. Searching for community assistance online can lead to an overwhelming number of hits, that is if you know what to search for.

Community Help Finder has done the legwork of identifying local assistance organizations, drilling down to the relevant programs, and sharing organizations' public contact information. And because people often need assistance in more than one area, we provide information for multiple categories: food, shelter/housing, clothes/goods, health, education, work, legal, youth services, animal welfare, and in some areas disaster assistance.

Last but not least, we use the power of the internet and social networking to bring this information to individuals and communities. If you have access to a desktop computer or a smart phone, you can use the Community Help Finder website or mobile apps to quickly get information on assistance programs near you. This is why we call it "Kindness Connected."