Charity of the week: Armed Services YMCA
The organization works with the Department of Defense to make life easier for military families.
The Armed Services YMCA (asymca.org) is dedicated to making military life easier by supporting families of enlistees with free health, education, and social programs. Working closely with the Department of Defense at 14 branches across the U.S., it addresses families’ unmet needs with a wide variety of services, including child care, health classes, crisis counseling, hospital assistance, and schooling for both children and adults. Its Operation Hero program provides after-school tutoring and mentoring to elementary-school-age children who are having difficulty in school because of frequent moves and deployments, and its Operation Kid Comfort provides homemade quilts incorporating pictures of a deployed parent to young children who miss their mom or dad.
Each charity we feature has earned a four-star overall rating from Charity Navigator, which ranks not-for-profit organizations on the strength of their finances, their control of administrative and fund-raising expenses, and the transparency of their operations. Four stars is the group’s highest ranking.
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