Giving Tuesday: The New York Race Track Chaplaincy

[Wandering Eyes]

Each day leading up to Giving Tuesday, the TDN will offer space to charities providing service the people and animals in the racing industry. To submit your charity’s message, email suefinley@thetdn.com

NY RACE TRACK CHAPLAINCY: To donate, click here.

Dear Friend:

Thanks to you, this year 2,369 men, women and children were impacted in a positive way by one of our many programs at Belmont Park, Aqueduct Racetrack, and Saratoga Race Course. These opportunities for growth, education, and ensuring a brighter future included, among others, children’s summer enrichment, girls mentoring, holiday sponsorships, women’s book club, recreation, benevolence, and financial literacy.

We thank you for impacting the lives and enhancing the dignity of the horse racing workforce and their families.

To give an example, we recently helped a single father who works as a groom to get settled at a new apartment with his daughter after they suffered a personal crisis. He’s had to work hard due to his situation as a single father. With your help, through our benevolence program, we were able to obtain back to school supplies and school clothes for his daughter, and get them both situated in their new apartment.

Without your help, this gentleman and his daughter would be out on the street. Today, they are safe, warm and self-sufficient.

Every day, your support makes stories like this one possible. In fact today, with your help we will be distributing approximately 200 turkeys, bags of groceries, and fresh vegetables to our families at Belmont Park, after serving approximately 50 families at Aqueduct Racetrack on Saturday.

We have now launched our 2019 Year-End Campaign. How will your donation be put to use?

Reaching the unserved. You see, even though we helped over 2,300 people last year, there are still almost 1,000 members of the backstretch community that we could be assisting. How would we do this? With your help, we will be able to both expand existing programs, and create new programs.

For instance: Last year we launched a book club for women. Mind you, when women of the backstretch community come to an evening class, they have already been up since 4 a.m., worked a full day, prepared meals, helped their children with their homework, cleaned up, and now, instead of calling it a night, they are coming out and often walking to our trailer because they are motivated enough to want to improve their lives. The first day of our book club we were delighted to welcome five women. Five became ten dedicated members of this group. After a summer break, the first Fall class started on a night of intense pouring rain. Imagine how we felt when 20 (!) women showed up for a standing room only class.

Our new building, scheduled to begin construction this year, will allow us to welcome individuals such as the loyal members of the book club to a comfortable and nurturing environment. We are planning for an expansion of our food pantry, the launch of a boys mentoring program, a longer STEM program for our middle schoolers, and an expansion of classes designed to lift those we serve out of living day to day and allowing all to believe in a brighter future.

The NY Race Track Chaplaincy team simply cannot do this without you. Maintaining and increasing our services requires increased resources. We need you, and your support will have a real, lasting impact on the lives of those who work to make NY Horse Racing the best there is.

We deeply appreciate your continued support and friendship.

With gratitude,

Ramón Dominguez
Acting President, NY Race Track Chaplaincy Board of Directors

The post Giving Tuesday: The New York Race Track Chaplaincy appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

View the full article