The Charities
The tournament committee spent countless hours searching for charities located in Bucks County and who needed our assistance in two ways. The first way is financial. Many charities operate on local government grants, gifts and other handouts that tend to shrink each year. So the charities are forced to look at different avenues to produce more income to cover the expenses to maintain the important programs offered at no charge to the public.

The second challenge of the tournament is to create public awareness of the charity’s existence. Many Bucks County residents are most likely not aware of all the different charities that operate in Bucks County. Some of these charities provide an excellent service that people fail to utilize. Our objective is to introduce and create a great deal of public awareness for the following two charities:

 

Founded in 1907, Tabor Children’s Services is a private, not-for-profit child welfare agency that for nearly 100 years has provided quality programs to keep children safe, strengthen families and promote independence. The children are at risk for abuse or neglect and come from highly challenged families. Social workers in Tabor’s intensive family support services are on-cal 24/7 and achieve a 91% success rate in maintaining intact families. Youth in adolescent programs receive preparation for independent living as productive citizens, including life skills training, help with college scholarship applications and job interview workshops. Trained foster parents team with Tabor social workers to meet the special needs of children and youth in care and support the birth family’s efforts to achieve the child’s return home. The adoption program finds permanent families for children, including those with developmental or physical handicaps. Included in the child development center are the children whose families receive day-care subsidies and some children have special needs. In 2004, the Agency served more than 4700 children and families.

 

Contact for Bucks County is a not-for-profit organization founded in 1978 to provide a 24 hour telephone service for people in immediate crisis, those seeking mental health assistance or information and referral for a wide range of human services needs. The telephone service is operated 24/7 and is manned by volunteers who complete a 40 hour training course and practicum in crisis telephone work. The Contact number is toll free to all Bucks County residents. Currently, Contact receives over 11,000 calls per year.

Since 1986, Contact has offered a Reassurance Program designed to provide a daily telephone call to elderly or disabled people who live alone and are isolated from daily contact. Such people are at risk for serious injury and premature death because there is no one to ensure their safety on a daily basis. Each person is matched with a volunteer caller who is committed to call every day at the same time 365 days a year. Contact currently has 135 Reassurance clients being called every day and has served more than 500,000 since inception.