Dear Saint David’s Community,

I want to congratulate you on making the first week of our “Family Promise” commitment a huge success. As you may remember, almost two years ago our congregation wanted to do our part in helping the homeless population in our area. We chose “Family Promise,” a non-profit, non-denominational organization for families facing homelessness. There are currently more than 200 affiliates in 43 states. More than 825,000 people have been served. The Family Promise Rotational Shelter provides: shelter, meals, and support services to families experiencing homeless. Because they make use of existing community resources they can be implemented quickly without major start-up costs.

There are six basic components:

1. Host/ Support Sites
2. The Family Promise Center
3. Transportation
4. Fundraising
5. Social Service Agencies
6. Volunteers 

We have been preparing our building to become a welcoming space for hosting. As you know, our kitchen is not finished. Grant Park Church allowed us to use their facility, which has already hosted families with Family Promise. The space was perfect.

Here’s how our week went: On Sunday, August 28 at 6:00 pm our two families arrived. All together there were nine people. We had dinner ready and served family style and our volunteers ate with the families. We began getting to know each other. The families are our guests, and it was a pleasure to treat them as such. After dinner, some volunteers cleaned up and some volunteers played with the children and gave the parents a chance to relax. We had snacks in the kitchen, which the kids loved, and eventually it was bed time and each family went to their rooms.

We had two volunteers who spent the night. The volunteers had their own rooms and were allowed to sleep. We just needed volunteers there in case of an emergency. At 7:30 am, a bus arrived and took the families, after a quick breakfast provided by us, to The Family Promise Center. They would also take children to school, as needed.

At the center, the Executive Director and other staff provide services. There, guests pursue employment, tend to pre-school children, shower, and do laundry. The center provides guests with a mailing address and a base for housing and employment searches. Many guests are employed during the day while the children attend school. Transportation brings the families back to us at 6:00pm, where we again have dinner ready and proceed as we did the night before.

I didn’t know what to expect as far as interaction would go, and I’m sure it will vary every time. These families were lovely people, they were so grateful to us and polite. They were generous with each other. One woman celebrated her birthday with us, and she purchased donuts for everyone to celebrate. Another family went to the store and purchased food for lunches for everyone at the Center during the day. The kids, as always, stole our hearts. Some volunteers brought their children who really enjoyed playing with the other kids. We would love to have some families volunteer. We said goodbye to our families on Sunday morning 9/4 after a nice breakfast. Volunteers cleaned up and the families moved on to a new location. 

This is good work. Our commitment is four times a year for one week at a time. Personally, I was happy to have been a part of this. As always, we could use more volunteers and of course your prayers.

I want to give a special thanks to Cass Cole and Kim Felder who made our jobs much easier.
Hurrah to all the other volunteers, we did a good job!