Thank you for visiting Friends of CMCA!

Check out our Success Stories where you'll find a letter written by a Circles participant, explaining the help she recieved and what it's done for her and her family.

Central Missouri Community Action has been supporting the economic stability of participants and communities throughout mid-Missouri for nearly fifty years. We serve individuals and communities in Audrain, Boone, Callaway, Cole, Cooper, Howard, Moniteau, and Osage Counties. Over the last few years we have had over 15,000 participants per year and our work with communities has expanded to include economic development and cost-saving endeavors, innovative anti-poverty initiatives, an expansion of education services, initiatives that focus on health disparities, and outreach efforts to engage community leaders to find local solutions to local problems. Central Missouri Community Action is a 501 c3 registered non-profit organization.

Friends of CMCA was designed for you; our partners, supporters, and individuals throughout mid-Missouri that want to help us make a difference. Since the recession began in 2008, tens of thousands more mid-Missourians have felt the economic crunch and are struggling to make ends meet. Unemployment rates have sky-rocketed and average wages have declined as people scramble for any job that will help them get by. We have seen the demand increase in our Family Resource Centers and Career Centers, and our Head Start and Early Head Start waiting lists have grown. Child abuse and domestic violence are on the rise as the fear and stress of economic crises grip the hearts and minds of people; our friends and neighbors, that just want to work and do the right thing for their families. With this stark reality as a backdrop, the United States Congress is tackling our federal deficit by severely cutting and eliminating many of these programs. The House of Representative passed cuts in March that would devastate CMCA's ability to serve mid-Missouri. Our Employment and Training Programs would cease to exist, Head Start programming would be reduced, our ability to provide assistance to families that are struggling would be severely restricted, and our ability to respond to local needs and support local initiatives would be significantly hampered. We would have to seriously consider closing some of our Family Resource Centers and we would fear backsliding into the recession we are desperately trying to escape.

I understand and support the concept of reducing federal spending. Options to do so should balance middle-class interests with strategies to grow the middle class. Community Action and specifically the Community Services Block Grant, provide the flexible funding to engage the community to identify and support local strategies to do so. Whether it is to create a GED program where none existed before, or pulling a community together to fund a new health center, or providing small business startup capital, or working with communities to expand public transportation systems, or simply helping a family stabilize their crises, Central Missouri Community Action connects individuals and families to services that help them maneuver through the complexities of economic security.

Here is where YOU come in. Because you are at this site, you are probably interested in the economic health of your community and neighbors and may appreciate what Central Missouri Community Action does. We have been working for you for these last five decades and now we need your help. By registering as a “Friend of CMCA” you can add your voice to hundreds of thousands of supporters of our network across the country and help Congress to make the difficult decisions they face . . . without doing it on the backs of Americans who are struggling. This website contains lots of information about how you can support CMCA and I hope you will register as a “Friend.”