NeighborShare is a direct giving platform that empowers donors to help others make ends meet within an ecosystem of trust. Carver was an inaugural participating charity at the outset of the pandemic. Today, Neighborshare is nationwide and thriving.
Here is a NeighborShare “Frontline Hero Spotlight” about Carver’s Elsie Lopez!
When Elsie Lopez first met Leah*, Leah had just moved to the area and was miserable.
“She hated it here,” Elsie says. “She said it was cold, she didn’t have any friends, she didn’t speak the language…she’d come in my office and cry, but I promised her that things would change”
Elsie is the executive administrator at the Carver Foundation of Norwalk, an education nonprofit in Norwalk, Connecticut. Partnering with schools to provide before and after school programs and summer camps for grades K-12, the foundation offers extra support and more personalized attention for students like Leah. So when Leah stopped showing up to the program one day, Elsie and her coworkers were on it immediately.
“I was beside myself because I thought we’d lost her,” Elsie says. “But we were able to speak with her parents and bring her back to the program.”
Years later, at a STEM fair, Elsie ran into that same young lady.
“A young lady comes up[to me], looks straight at my face, and I looked in her eyes and remembered her,” Elsie says. “She just threw herself into my arms and hugged me. She’s now in middle school, speaks the language fluently, and has friends.”
Leah’s story could have gone very differently. For many students, a prolonged absence would have been noticed too late or been ignored. But because of the Carver Foundation’s personal investment in each individual student, Leah didn’t slip through the cracks.