ISAAC honors Kalamazoo Public Schools, County Board of Commissioners, Friends of Transit & Rev. Rick Tyson

THANK YOU to everyone who came to the ISAAC 2014 Banquet! It was a joyful celebration of the past year’s accomplishments, with lots of inspiration for the work to come, from award-winning keynote presenter Elise Bryant and singer and Loy Norrix High School student Havier Hill Roller.

The ISAAC Ally-of-the-Year Award went to the Kalamazoo Public Schools (KPS) because of the creative new kind of partnership between KPS and ISAAC that resulted in 100 more four-year-olds getting the benefits of high quality preschool this school year. Last summer, when the state legislature funded additional preschool slots, KPS asked ISAAC to hire and supervise door-to-door recruiters of families with young children, and many slots were filled before school began.

The ISAAC Elected-Ally-of-the-Year Award went to the Kalamazoo County Board of Commissioners, because of their bi-partisan decision to save on the public costs of homelessness by putting the Kalamazoo County Public Housing Commission into the County budget and then by doubling the funding for housing affordable to people with low-wage jobs or disabilities. Studies show that making housing affordable costs half as much as providing shelter to people who are homeless.

The ISAAC Founders’ Award went to Friends of Transit, a joint effort of Disability Network Southwest Michigan and ISAAC, because of their advocacy work that resulted in a new bus route starting March 31, to a large mobile home park in Pavilion Township. With support from Friends of Transit, the residents of Pavilion Estates collected signatures and spoke at Metro Transit and Kalamazoo County Transit Authority meetings to ask for bus service. The resulting shuttle service was so well-used that a regular bus route was added.

The ISAAC Leader-of-the-Year Award went to Rev. Richmond Tyson, pastor of From the Bible Church and ISAAC Vice President of Finance, because of his generous and cheerful giving of his time, talent and treasure to every ISAAC endeavor.

An ISAAC Cornerstone Award went to the United Methodists of Kalamazoo for very generous support of ISAAC by Sunnyside, Westwood, Wesley, and the United Methodist Church Kalamazoo District Office. An ISAAC Buttress Award went to People’s Church for their energetic support of ISAAC for the fourth year in a row.

THANK YOU to everyone who attended the banquet, donated tickets for others, put an ad in the banquet book, made a contribution, or helped in all the preparation for the banquet. Your gifts make it possible for all of us to be ISAAC, working together to build a more just community

Press Link: http://www.mlive.com/living/kalamazoo/index.ssf/2014/04/isaac_honors_kalamazoo_public.html