Quick Checking

35: The number of Quick Checks performed at the resource fair this weekend.

Saturday morning found Kaitlyn and me at my first resource fair at the Evangel Church of God in Dayton. At first I was a little annoyed to have to wake up early on a Saturday, but I actually slept in a little compared to my usual bedtime routine. Ever since I started this job I have had trouble waking up past 8 a.m. Maybe this means I've truly entered adulthood. But I digress.

This fair was designed to be a one-stop place for struggling families to find support and resources within their community. Needless to say, the Ohio Benefit Bank program fits this description perfectly. Kaitlyn and I were eager to bring in as many people as possible to use the Quick Check program, so in the week preceding the event we put together a colorful tri-fold, packed up as many informational leaflets as we could carry, and bought plenty of candy, the better to lure people to our booth. Check out our homemade trifold below!

I made the two middle posters myself!

By the way, the Quick Check program is a Web-based tool that tells you what your potential eligibility is for benefit programs such as food stamps, child care assistance, medical assistance, HEAP, etc. It asks for some really basic information and only takes about five minutes to complete. After doing that, we would ask for our client's address so we could find a benefit bank site near him or her so they could work on their application, which is also really easy to do through the Benefit Bank. So if you want to check out what YOUR eligibility is, go to http://www.governor.ohio.gov/Default.aspx?alias=www.governor.ohio.gov/obb and click on "Check on your potential eligibility for supports," the link on the righthand side. Moving on.

The fair itself looked awesome, though we didn't spend much time outside. Our booth was inside, because we needed to use our laptops. I think it worked out well because we would be asking people personal financial questions, and it might have been more difficult for them to open up if they were surrounded by people and balloons. But we could definitely hear someone shouting out numbers to Bingo cards, and there was a lot of music (inconviently located, I might add. I sometimes had to shout to my clients to be heard above the noise). I think they also had pony rides, but don't quote me on that. Pictured below is Kaitlyn at our booth:

The church's event planner, Pam, was incredibly helpful. About once every hour, she announced what we did and where our booth was, so we had a lot of people coming in. Also, she brought us lunch so we didn't have to leave our booth, which was really thoughtful of her.

We had about 35 people come in to use the Quick Check program, and almost all of them were eligible for at least one benefit. A lot of people had absolutely no idea that they would qualify. One woman nearly cried with relief when I told her she didn't have to pay school fees if her kids were on free lunch. It felt amazing to be able to help people like that.

It was, without a doubt, the best day I have had this year as a Vista. I feel like I really did make a difference.

Definitely worth waking up early on a Saturday.