Member Highlight: Tomorrow Today Foundation
Tomorrow Today is Benalla’s independent community foundation. We connect people, resources and ideas to create a bright future for our great rural community. The foundation has been going strong for 22 years and is well-established and trusted in the community.
We believe that everyone should have the chance to thrive – and education is the answer. Working together with families, schools, and the community, we are leading a long-term project to ensure all of our children and young people can achieve their potential in school, work and life.
Local people are able to help shape our community’s future by donating time, money and skills through a trusted local organisation, dedicated to responding to local needs.
We work collaboratively with the whole community so that together we can achieve the following for Benalla:
Our children learning: Our flagship Parents Early Education Partnership (PEEP) program has become part of daily life for local families with preschool aged children. Families are empowered to give their children the best start in life. Through PEEP and many other activities, children are starting their educational journey with the skills they need to learn and to flourish. We have also recently started Antenatal PEEP and ConnectParent. Antenatal PEEP targets families from 28 weeks of gestation and supports parents to be during this very exciting and important time. ConnectParent is designed to support families during the crucial first 1000 days of their child’s life. Trained volunteer Community Connectors will work with families from pregnancy through the first two years of the child’s life, linking them to essential services and support systems to ensure they thrive.
Our young people achieving: Feeling good about themselves and their future has a profound impact on young people’s success at school and in life. Activities such as our Connect9 mentoring program increases connection to the community and boost wellbeing. Young people are supported to develop the knowledge, confidence and skills needed to embrace future work opportunities, through a range of community and school-based activities. We have recently launched a new pilot program for Year 8 students called Motive8, which is a mentoring program that will involve fun group challenges and information sharing on topics such as managing emotions, respectful relationships and maintaining personal motivation.
Our community thriving: We work with more than 120 public, private and community organisations on shared objectives for right now, and for the future of Benalla. With the collective capacity and goodwill of so many people and organisations, our collaborative approach makes real change possible. In addition, we provide grants for community development projects, thanks to the growing Community Fund.
Please visit our website at tomorrowtoday.com.au to read more about the many programs we run, the assistance we provide the Benalla community and how you can donate your time as a volunteer or money to help our community thrive.