LINC Caring Communities Impact Report

“I’m looking for my leaders,” he says. “Show me your hands if you are a leader. Raise them high!” Nearly every child is waving. “Everybody look around,” Wilson says. “These are my young people that will help you if need help.” He didn’t ask, but every one of the blue-shirt LINC staffers has made the same promise — to the children, their families and the community.

When it comes to understanding the paths through and out of poverty, the LINC teams in the training room were ready for an advanced course. So when LINC gathered its staff with specialists from the Missouri Department of Social Services to train on “Bridges out of Poverty,” the work got serious fast.

Mike Lane and his Amyloidosis Army came to Hickman Mills with an urgent message about the pervasive but little known disease that affects at least one-in-25 people among the U.S. Black population.

We’ve got witnesses. Children and LINC staff who were there tell the tale of explosions, bubbling concoctions and seeming magic that was the first year of LINC’s in-house S.T.E.A.M. team.

“LINC approaches summer with a go-get-’em attitude.” So goes the energy across before and after school programs with all of LINC’s school district partners and special Freedom Schools as hundreds of children saw their summer education spiced with exciting field trips and celebrations.