St. Louis, MO – February 16, 2021

Connectria’s leadership team is pleased to announce a $100,000 donation to Youth In Need, in concert with the Bregal Helps Initiative. “Connectria considered several local nonprofit organizations in the St. Louis area before choosing Youth In Need to receive this award,” said Rusty Putzler, VP and COO, Connectria.

“Corporate gifts of this magnitude that help provide direct and immediate services are rare for us or for any nonprofit in St. Louis,” said Pat Holterman-Hommes, Youth In Need’s President and CEO. “This means so much, especially during the pandemic.”

At-risk youth experiencing homelessness tend to blend into their community. They aren’t what most may consider “homeless” as they are not necessarily sleeping on the street or seen seeking shelter in public. Instead, they are couch surfing between friends, grandparents, friends of friends, and strangers’ spare rooms. Ultimately, Connectria’s investment supports Youth In Need and its organizational goal targeting functionally zero homeless youth. This simply means that any youth in need of services have access to support.

“Our services just can’t be turned off because there’s a pandemic. In fact, there’s a greater need for what we do, with some truly incredible staff keeping our services going. In the beginning, there was also this sense of uncertainty about what the pandemic would mean for our funding, making Connectria’s gift all the more important and key to helping us maintain our services,” said Holterman-Hommes.

“This donation is Connectria’s way of thinking globally by acting locally. We serve over 1,000 companies worldwide, but more and more are coming to us from our own backyard here in St. Louis,” said Putzler. “We hope this gift not only supports the services and programs of Youth In Need but also inspires others to give. As I like to look at it, our gift represents 100,000 more reasons to support local charities and similar outreach organizations, now more than ever.”

About Youth In Need

Youth In Need provides a variety of prevention and intervention services to nearly 10,000 children, youth, and families each year. Services include infant, child and family development, Head Start and Early Head Start, emergency youth shelter, transitional youth housing, homeless street outreach, Safe Place, youth and family counseling, school-based counseling, foster care case management, and positive youth development. As a proud United Way agency, Youth In Need employs nearly 400 full- and part-time staff at nearly 100 locations that span the agency’s 100-mile service area, including St. Louis City and St. Louis, St. Charles, Lincoln, Warren, and Montgomery Counties in Missouri. Recognized for its reputation of excellence, Youth In Need is accredited by the Council on Accreditation, meets the Better Business Bureau’s 20 standards for Charity Accountability, has a GuideStar Platinum Seal of Transparency, and was voted a St. Louis Post-Dispatch Top Workplace for six consecutive years. https://www.youthinneed.org/

About Connectria

Founded in 1996, Connectria helps businesses realize their cloud vision with end-to-end hosting and managed services, from IBM i to the public cloud, backed by industry-leading SLAs and an award-winning, customer-centric culture. Connectria is the largest IBM i (AS/400) cloud provider in North America and a recognized IBM business partner with demonstrated excellence driving business growth. Connectria has also become a leader in delivering end-to-end cloud migration and managed services as an Amazon Web Services (AWS) Advanced Consulting Partner and AWS Managed Services Provider.