Momentum - Business to Business Online Magazine October 2018 | Page 29

Non-Profit of the Month By: Connie Nyquist Family Promise of Clear Creek [email protected] Family Promise of Clear Creek is a coalition of 19 churches in the greater Bay Area who are working together to help homeless families regain their housing, their independence, and their dignity. In the United States today, one child out of six lives in poverty. Families with children make up 35% of the people who experience homelessness. Believing that every child deserves a home, the churches in the greater Bay Area have joined together to address this problem. Many programs for the homeless separate husbands and wives and older boys from their mothers. We are the only program for the homeless in this area which keeps families together. The coalition works together to provide a safe place to sleep in our churches on a weekly rotation. At the church the families also receive home cooked meals and warm hospitality that respects their dignity. The parents also receive coaching in life skills: financial literacy, parenting skills, job search skills and nutrition. This happens one night a week at the churches using trained leadership and on Saturday at the Day Center. Volunteers can be used in this program. We are not a shelter but rather a program that seeks to help families achieve independence. These families do not represent the chronically homeless but rather the invisible homeless in our midst. They are families in our midst who have been living pay check to pay check and then there is a medical emergency, a divorce, a loss of job and now they have no place to go. 28 MOMENTUM / October 2018 In Clear Creek School District alone there are over 3000 children classified as homeless, i.e. they do not have a permanent address. We also serve Dickinson, Alvin, Pearland, Friendswood and parts of Pasadena School districts. Our guests are most often referred to us by other nonprofit agencies in our area, the school districts and churches. There is a Day Center in League City where the families can go to receive case management, access to computers for job searches and a comfortable place to spend time during the day if they are unemployed. The Day Center also provides an address and contact number for the families as they seek employment. Guests in the program often are without vehicles which makes it impossible to secure employment, so we have developed a Ride to Success Program, using donated vehicles that are then loaned to our guests. When they are ready to leave the program, they have the option of purchasing the vehicle for a reduced cost thus putting more money back into the program to pay for insurance, gas and car repair for those still in the program. Family Promise does not receive government funding, so we are dependent on individual and business donations, support from churches, grants and fundraising. On October 20th, we will be holding our annual Gala at Hometown Heroes Park in League City. More information can be found at ccfamilypromise.org.