PILLAGER FAMILY COUNCIL

The Pillager Family Center came out of the idea that every community is different. The community members have the best idea of what is needed in their community. The Pillager Family Center was started to provide services and programs locally and is community driven. Pillager is located 60 miles south of the county seat and many County based programs are offered at the Pillager Family Center by collaborating with departments at Cass County, including Woman Infant Clinics (WIC), Child and Teen Checkup Clinics (CTC), financial workers, Veteran's service workers, and child protection.

The Pillager Family Center is a central place for families to look for resources. The staff members can help them find the resources or services they may need. This may include food help, energy assistance help, child care assistance, gas vouchers, financial help, or refering them to a service they may be looking for and do not know where to look.

The Pillager Family Center has evolved over the past 19 years since it began in 1992. Currently the Pillager Family Center operates a state licensed child care center and preschool program, and operates the before and after school and summer school age care program. For these three programs the Pillager Family Center collaborates with the Pillager School.

Early intervention and prevention is the place where the Pillager Family Center focuses resources, to help families where there are at and to help them move forward. The Home Visiting Program is a program for first time parents and is a curriculum based program for parents and their child to participate. The program focuses on the parent child relationship and builds on the parent's strengths. The home visitor visits the family weekly and works through the evidence based curriculum, Growing Great Kids.

The Pillager Family Center operates the Pillager area food shelf. The Pillager Food Shelf is open Thursdays from noon until 5:00 pm and is open to those in need of help. Families can access the food shelf once a month for food and every week for bread and pastries which have been donated by Cub Foos, a local grocery store. The majority of food is purchased through Second Harvest Food Bank to help stretch the dollars that are donated. The Pillager Family Center participates in the annual March Minnesota Food Share campaign.