Proceeds from the Children’s Champion Luncheon support Idaho Voices for Children.

The Children’s Champion Luncheon brings together hundreds of community partners to honor someone whose work has had statewide impact improving the lives of kids and families in Idaho. This year’s Children’s Champion, Nora Carpenter, continues to be a true champion for Idaho kids and their future well-being.

At Idaho Voices for Children, we believe in an Idaho where every child has the opportunity to thrive. Once a year, we set aside time to thank and honor an Idahoan who is making this dream a reality. During the even, we will look ahead to specific policy areas where Idaho Voices for Children is making an impact. All funds raised during the Children’s Champion Luncheon support the public policy advocacy work Voices does year round to make Idaho a better place for every child.

Proceeds from the event support child advocacy in the areas of health, education, safety and well-being.

Sponsor the Children’s Champion Luncheon:

Corporate sponsorships support the work of Idaho Voices for Children year round and will be recognized during the Children’s Champion Luncheon. To sponsor the Children’s Champion Luncheon contact us at info@idahovoices.org.

 

Champion Sponsor: $10,000

Voice’s Partner: $5,000

Children’s Supporter: $3,000

Lunch Underwriter: $1,500

 

Please contact us at info@idahovoices.org for more information about sponsorship benefits.

Honoring Nora Carpenter as the 2024 Children’s Champion:

Nora spent much of her professional career working to advance the interest of children and families in Idaho.

As the President & CEO of Big Brothers Big Sisters of Southwest Idaho she raised awareness of the value of mentoring youth, strengthened ties with area schools, and expanded programming in Southwestern Idaho.

Nora went on to become the President & CEO of United Way Treasure Valley, where she served for over 10 years. In this role, Nora developed a culture of using high-quality data to understand the complex issues facing Idahoans and shed light on opportunities for improvement.  Specifically, she introduced the use of ALICE (Asset-Limited, Income-Constrained, Employed) data, which uses hyper-local data to understand challenges and identify solutions in neighborhoods of greatest need.

Nora was a leader in introducing the ‘community school strategy’ to Idaho and made it a focus of United Way. Bringing together a ‘coalition of the willing,’ Nora helped guide an effort to provide preschool and basic needs to low-income families at school sites and to locate out-of-school programming, and other resources in neighborhoods where families could access them.

Today, many schools, neighborhoods and communities across Idaho are working together to blend their resources, skills, and expertise to support, lift, and advance success for Idaho’s children and families.  Onsite mental health services, school food, and clothing pantries, expanded in and out of school supports are all becoming normalized in many locations across Idaho…and growing.  Nora’s leadership, partnership-building and influence has been significant in the expansion of this powerful life-improvement strategy.

As this approach has proven successful, interest and funding has followed. Just this year, the US Department of Education announced a $46 million grant for a coalition of Idaho organization to expand the ‘community schools’ strategy to more rural Idaho communities.  Today, tens of thousands of Idaho youth have better, more accessible resources and support wrapping around them.  And more to come.