Our OnRamp staff family has grown! Our Care Director, Cassidy Somervill, gave birth to Peyton Grace Somervill on Tuesday morning. We are praising the Lord for a safe, healthy baby girl to join Cassidy, Jordan, and Kacey.
For all our clients and advocates, Cassidy will be on maternity leave for the next two months. During that time, our Operations Director, Stephanie Mason, will shoulder her responsibilities and serve as the point person for OnRamp’s clients and advocates. We can’t thank Stephanie enough for helping during this time so that Cassidy can focus on Peyton. We do ask for patience and grace as we try to manage an unprecedented number of vehicle donation requests with a reduced staff. As of this morning, there are 27 nomination forms in our queue from just the last two months! Not long ago, that was the total number of clients we would serve in a whole year. And just for reference, if we accept all of them, this slate of clients will cost us $270,000 to put in vehicles at current market rates! In just two months! So if you’ve ever thought about giving to OnRamp, now is a great time.
Finally, time to get a bit preachy, if you will permit me. I am so thankful that our dynamite board of directors granted Cassidy paid maternity leave for the next two months. I confess that at first I was a bit worried about the financial cost of this offer. But then as she often does, our wise Board Chair, Catherine Cole, gently reminded me that if we are truly a pro-life, pro-women, pro-family organization, it would be hypocritical not to grant paid maternity leave to our staff. She’s right. In our opinion, any business or organization that desires to promote a pro-family, pro-life culture really should offer paid maternity leave if at all possible, with length depending on what the business/org can afford, but the more, the better. Better yet, consider paid family leave so that both spouses can bond with their new child during those first crucial months. We believe this should extend to both full and part time workers since it is often part-timers who most need the margin to cover bills. Yes, it will cost you just as it costs us, but it is a very small price to pay to help children enter life on a firm foundation. We hope other businesses and orgs will join us so that paid parental leave eventually becomes the norm in our community!