BUDGET BUDDIES
Are you having trouble making ends meet? Do you often find your bank account empty toward the end of each pay period? If so, there is help available, in the form of a free budget counseling session with ClearPoint Credit Counseling Solutions. The nonprofit’s Springfield branch is moving to 1999 Wabash Avenue. The new location replaces their old office at 975 South Durkin Dr. “ClearPoint has served the Springfield community for over 15 years and we are very happy to continue our commitment to serve the community’s financial education and financial counseling needs,” says Jacqueline Tammenga, ClearPoint’s Illinois area director. The Richmond, Va.-based nonprofit is registered with the Office of Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan and has four locations in central and southern Illinois. Besides free budgeting sessions, ClearPoint offers free or low-cost credit counseling, HUDapproved pre-purchase and mortgage delinquency counseling, reverse-mortgage counseling, bankruptcy counseling and personal finance education programs.
ClearPoint is also approved as a housing counseling agency by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. For more information, call 877-877-1995 or visit www.clearpointccs.org.
SUPPORT SLIDERS & THE TROOPS
The voice of the song “Riding with Private Malone” and a face of Operation Troop Aid, country music star David Ball will be in Springfield this Saturday, July 30, to help raise money for soldiers stationed overseas.
Ball is the second feature that night at Robin Roberts Stadium, where the Sliders will play a 5:05 p.m. game against the Sliders of Slippery Rock, Pa. Ball will perform directly after the baseball game, at no additional cost to spectators. Admission to the game costs $6.
Operation Troop Aid is a nonprofit organization started in Tennessee by Mark Woods, who retired from the Navy after 21 years of service. Each year, the organization sends to troops between 20,000 and 40,000 individual care packages containing phone cards, trail mix, toiletry items and letters of thanks.
To raise money for the effort, Operation Troop Aid will sell wrist bands and raffle tickets for a chance to win a guitar signed by various country musicians including Trace Adkins and Kellie Pickler. The baseball team will also be raffling off tickets for chances to win a donated treadmill.
“It’s going to be a great night. We’re going to have a lot of people and just do the best we can to raise some money,” says Dana Plummer, Springfield Sliders assistant general manager.
For more information about Operation Troop Aid, visit www.operationtroopaid.org.
