Our Program on Tuesday, January 3rd was Scott Searl, Director for Philanthropy for ICA. We had an amazing turn-out of 20 members in spite of the blizz
ard and 5” of snow! Prior to Scott’s presentation we inducted Keith Stuessi as our newest member. Tim Litfin handled the formal induction and Garry Thompson introduced Keith to the members and is his club sponsor. Keith gave some brief comments and was unanimously voted in as our 4th new member since July.


ICA also helps recipients to find jobs and housing assistance. They have a full time employment consultant Kerry Fisher to help people in their job search and she has contacts that are willing to employ immigrants, ex-felons and others that have been terminated due to budget cuts. They also provide housing assistance to the tune of 1 1/2 million dollars in rental assistance! They can only provide one month of rental assistance and have 200-300 families receiving assistance. ICA gets high marks for keeping their overhead to 10% with the rest going to their clients. Over the last several they have become very efficient in their new location that gives their clients the feel of a regular grocery store. We also found out during the Q&A that they provide books to all ages and our club will make them a recipient from our spring book collection project. They also provide dog, cat and rabbit food for pets. ICA also provides snacks for needy kids in the Hopkins Schools.
Scott Searl is an amazing addition to ICA and we look forward to volunteering our club for a work day and part of our charitable giving program.