COUNTY LIFE
ATFS helps families touched by trauma
By BARBARA GREEN
[email protected]
Affirming Texas Family Services was created out of a desire to help rural and underserved areas where victims of trauma often fall through the cracks.
Three years later ATFS is providing free counseling services across five counties helping put families and lives back together. Jenny Rizzolo is chairman of the six-member board that oversees the 501c3 non-profit organization that serves Montague, Clay, Jack, Stephens and Young Counties.
Settled in an office space provided by the Presbyterian Church of Bowie at 300 W. Nelson, Rizzolo and Counselor Tonya King-Smith discussed the needs and services addressed by ATFS.
The beginnings
The organization began three years ago when Joe Gambill, former church minister, offered up the idea and talked about it with a person studying to be a counselor. Rizzolo was pulled in to help with the paperwork.
“That first year we didn’t get the grant, but the church gave us a $20,000 donation so we could provide a part-time counselor the first year. The second year we got a grant and last year a slightly larger grant. We are very reliant on grant and fundraising activities. Luckily with our office spaces donated we don’t have the overhead to deal with at any of our locations. All the money goes to pay counselors,” said Rizzolo.
Read the full story in the weekend Bowie News.
The 22nd annual July Jam returns on July 27 to the Bowie Community Center West Hall, 413 Pelham Street in Bowie.
There will be a “chickin’ pickin’ fiddling fun time” as guests will be entertained by amazing fiddling tunes and enjoying a chicken meal with delicious homemade jams because it wouldn’t be July Jam without it.
Tickets are just $15 with the event starting at 6 p.m. The funds raised help provide awards for the Championship Fiddler Competition during Chicken and Bread Days Heritage Festival on Oct. 5.
This attracts talented musicians from all over to visit downtown Bowie to test their fiddling skills on stage in the Bowie Fire Hall on Oct. 5.
Along with the live fiddling entertainment, come hungry and be ready to outbid your neighbors at the silent auction or just stop by for a great meal, fellowship and soak in the air conditioning.
Read the full story in the mid-week Bowie News.
The Nocona City Council met this past week making plans for budget and tax rate hearings.
Councilors received a brief update on the 2024-25 budget preparations. City Secretary Revell Hardison said the final proposal is almost complete and they now await the arrival of the no-new revenue tax rate that will be reviewed by the council after it is calculated by the tax collector.
The proposal includes a tax rate increase of about 3% similar to last year and there will be a small increase in water and sewer rates, but Hardison said the final crunch on those will come after the tax rate projections arrive.
Read the full story in the mid-week Bowie News.
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