It is with a great sense of pride and gratitude that I welcome you to the forty-first (41st) Annual Meeting of the Board of Directors of the Lake Community Action Agency, Inc.

We are pleased that you have again joined us as we present our 41st annual report to the community of Lake County.

This forty-first year has been a fast year with challenges but with some accomplishments as we have promoted community partnerships that helped families to help themselves.

LCAA values its ability to build community partnerships that will help us to deliver quality service and provide an opportunity to serve more people with the mission of Helping People to Help Themselves.

We have been able to achieve many positive results by our partnering with our community partners. Those partnerships have helped increase the resources for moving families out of poverty or to another level of self-sufficiency.

Our annual report shares many of the accomplishments during this reporting period. Although we are proud of the accomplishments, there are still many more children and families that are still in need of our services and programs. Our mission will never be achieved until all children and families have the opportunity to achieve and reach their fullest potential.

Our partnerships have not just been with partners for long term self-sufficiency goals, but for emergency situations that we have experienced during this year. LCAA has partnered with the Lake-Sumter Emergency Recovery Agency to help provide much needed counseling and case management for the many families that were affected by the Ground Hog Day tornado in February and the most recent storm in September. This will be a long term recovery for many of these families who have lost everything they had.

We are committed to this partnership to help these families help themselves to recover from these disasters. It will take the total county with all the available resources working together to help these families rehabilitate their lives.

We pause to salute all of the new partners that have joined us this year and to those who have renewed their commitment to join us in providing services and programs that will help families to help themselves.

I truly believe that there is strength in numbers - and where there is Unity there is strength. Together Everyone Achieves More (TEAM).

The theme for this Annual Meeting is the mission of this great organization that has served for forty-one years with great challenges of discrimination, racism, change and yes, growth. We have survived because there have been people who have been committed to the cause and overall mission of community action.

We as a nation may have decreased our poverty rate a small percentage; we still have new families falling into the category of being poor everyday. Let me remind you that most of America's working individuals and families are just one paycheck from being homeless and in poverty.

I urge each of you, our community partners, board, policy council, volunteers, public officials and staff to commit and re-commit yourselves to working as a unified body to help children and families of Lake County to help themselves to become more self-sufficient.

I commend all of you for what you have done, what you are doing, and what you will do for these most venerable citizens.

I pause also, to express our sincere gratitude to our sponsors and supporters of this 41st annual affair. A special thanks to Barry Myers and Toshiba of Orlando Area for accepting my challenge two years ago and made a difference. To all of you, THANKS, this is what Community Action is all about.

I also commend the governing board, policy council, volunteers, community partners, and staff for your continued dedication, your energy, your expertise, and time in making community action a viable force in Lake County.

Let us leave here tonight with a little more energy and commitment to HELPING PEOPLE, CHANGING LIVES AND HELPING THEM TO HELP THEMSELVES.

Thank you for allowing me to serve you for the past thirty-eight years. I believe strongly in the Promise of Community Action - Community Action changes people's lives, embodies the spirit of hope, improves communities, and make America a better place to live. We care about the entire community, and we are dedicated to helping people themselves and each other.

God's continued blessings on LCAA and each of you.

James H. Lowe, CCAP
Chief Executive Officer