November 2024
This year has been an exciting and productive year for our team at CIMI. Following our 10th Annual Adopt-A-Family celebration last December 2023, we hosted a series of events for our CIMI community. In the Spring, we held our annual Kick Off celebration to welcome and greet new families to our program. In the summer, we hosted a Back-To-School event to prepare our youth towards a new school year. Then for the first time ever, this fall, we provided scholarships to deserving first-generation college students. These events were made possible by the support of our amazing donors who helped CIMI raise $40,000 in donations in 2023 and $21,000 so far in 2024.
10th Annual Adopt-A-Family
December 18, 2023
Our 10th Annual Adopt-A-Family event was a huge success! The CIMI community and donarship gathered for a fun-filled afternoon complete with holiday festivities, delicious food and even a photobooth. As always, our signature event began with a walking activity around the track to reinforce our values of building physical strength through exercise and community. Our event ended with our donors adopting their families and providing them with holiday gift cards. We were very proud to see our members commemorate the activities of the year, but also to see their growth and confidence building. For the first time, CIMI moms and daughters each made a presentation to the audience naming reasons why they are proud to be CIMI members and ways that CIMI has helped them grow mentally and physically. Amongst the reasons mentioned, is learning the value of community that CIMI provides. Scroll through the carousel below to view more pictures from the event.
2024 Annual Kick-Off Celebration
April 6, 2024
We rang in the new year with our kick-off gathering hosted at Santa Maria Urban Ministry. After the holidays, is a great time for us to reconnect with our families and to remind ourselves of our CIMI values complete with pan y cafecito. To start, our amazing CIMI Moms (Rosario, Tania, Janeth, and Maria V.) arrived at 6:45 am to prepare the space, lay out breakfast items, and to decorate with our signature CIMI flags. Thirty-one families arrived shortly after and began the morning with a walk around the neighborhood. Following the walk, our CIMI founder, Aracely Areas, welcomed members old and new to share information about the upcoming events for the year. CIMI also provided gift cards which were much appreciated. Everyone was excited to kick off 2024!
Back-to-School
September 10, 2024
Our back-to-school event was held at Santa Maria Urban Ministry. Prior to the event, volunteers gathered to put together school supplies for the participating families. Also included were school uniforms. On the day of the event, the families met at 7:00 am for a 1.5 mile morning walk. Following the walk, the CIMI team welcomed families with morning coffee and breakfast items for the adults and kids. Afterwards, 39 families received back-to school bags for the upcoming school year. All the families were grateful for the support they received that day.
Scholarship Awarding Ceremony
October 6, 2024
A new initiative this year was to offer scholarships to college students. For the first time in CIMI history, we awarded three college students with scholarships and hosted an award ceremony! CIMI volunteers prepared a delicious lunch of carne asada and chicken tacos with side dishes. We also hosted a raffle for all the CIMI members to participate. Raffle prizes included Amazon gift cards, Chevron gift cards and backpacks.
CIMI received three applications and we were so impressed with the caliber of the students that we decided to award all three applicants. While we expected entries from younger scholars, our first recipient spoke about attending college online while being in her late thirties and as a mother of three. She takes online classes in the evenings and shared how challenging it is to juggle motherhood and school. She said she knows this is the best path for her future as a social worker, and was awarded $1500. Our second recipient also received $1500 to attend college. She is a first generation college student, originally from Mexico, and is pursuing an education and degree in Nursing. Finally, our third honoree had once been part of our Girls-Who-Code program and earned the largest scholarship amount: $2000. She discussed her plans of majoring in criminology.
Our three scholarship winners
What’s Next
Our year in review has been eventful for our CIMI community. We cannot believe how quickly 2024 has come and gone and to celebrate another year we are hosting our 11th Annual Adopt-A-Family Event on December 19th from 8:00 am-2:00 pm. We are excited for more food, merriment, and cheer and for our donarship to once again sponsor their families. This year, we are excited to feature Sherry Heinz, a recurring donor, who has already donated $10,000 to the event! We welcome any donations, volunteers, and any member referrals to our program. We thrive on building our community through physical exercise in order to be mentally strong for the growth of our membership. If you are in the South Bay area around the holidays, please stop by!
CIMI, Inc.
P.O. Box 1743, Los Gatos, CA, 95031
weruncimi@gmail.com
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