Junky Janko Market's First Give Back of 2024: The Canopy Center

If you've been around, you know we (our family) loves a good Junky Janko Market Give Back. And, as our success in give backs show, the Junky Janko Market community loves a good back too! I recently started as a volunteer Court Appointed Special Advocate ("CASA") to children who have experienced abuse or neglect and are under the protection or authority of the courts. CASA is a unique program in that it is directly assigned by the courts to work with some of our community's most vulnerable children. The Dane & Columbia County CASA program is run under the Canopy Center. 
 
During my initial training, they were chatting about donations and I knew immediately that the Canopy Center would be Junky's next give back!! 

A little bit about the Canopy Center:
The Canopy Center’s mission is to strengthen families and provide advocacy, support and treatment for children impacted by trauma and adversity. Canopy Center primarily serves foster children, child welfare system involved families, and survivors of child sexual abuse in south central Wisconsin - populations that are often marginalized, stigmatized and underserved. Canopy Center’s programs include: CASA of Dane & Columbia Counties; Parent to Child Supervised Visitation and Oasis Sexual Abuse Treatment Program (a certified mental health clinic).

Junky Janko Market will be using $3.00 from each candle sale to put towards purchasing Gift Cards. 

Why Gift Cards?
Many of the children and families the Canopy Center serve also struggle financially and while Canopy Center is able to provide most services at no cost - when children arrive hungry or families are concerned about where their next meal will come from it creates an unnecessary distraction from the hard work they are about to do. 
 
While the Canopy Center do serve clients during the day, a number of their programs take place after school and on weekends - to allow children and families to be in school and at work. When children arrive for services, they can have some popcorn, fresh fruit or make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. This small amenity truly helps set children up for success - ensuring they can concentrate during programs and increasing the probability of successful therapeutic outcomes. This can also alleviate stress for struggling families. These costs are not covered by the primary funding sources. The Canopy Center applies for grants and use grocery gift cards to make sure these items are stocked.
 
When they have available funds/donations, they also strive to provide some emergency food assistance in the form of grocery store or fast food gift cards for families/children. A gift card to a favorite fast food chain is also a great way to engage with teens who are involved in their Court Appointed Special Advocate Program. Sometimes, gift cards are used to take them for a burger and other times as a reward for a goal that was set. 

If you would like to support our giveback further outside of purchasing a candle, the Canopy center has created an Amazon Registry with items they are in need of to provide the best services. 

https://a.co/0Fvz4Yu