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 What if Family Promise of Mahoning Valley earned a donation every time you searched the Internet? Or how about if a percentage of every purchase you made online went to support our cause? Well, now it can!
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| From the September 2009 Bell: |
HUM will be hosting Family Promise the week of September 27–October 4. Sasha and O'Shea and Amy, Gabby, and Zach are still in the program. Two new families, a single mom and her two children, ages 5 and 7, and a husband and wife and two children, ages 1 and 2, are now in the program.
Our time with the families in June was very successful, thanks to all the help from our church family. We provide food for their breakfast and also food for the families to pack a lunch to take to the day center. Members of our church family prepare dinner and eat with the families. The families spend so much time at the day center that it is a treat for them to be able to stay at the church all day Saturday. We would like to do something fun with the families during the day and possibly have dinner at CiCi's Pizza that night.
Set up will go quickly if we have enough help. We need to move tables and set up beds after Sunday School. We also will need help putting everything away when they leave. Please prayerfully consider how you can be a part of this exciting program. There will be sign-up sheets in the narthex. We have been so blessed, and this is a way to share our gifts with people struggling to get back on their feet.
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| From the August 2009 Bell: |
Reflections on Family Promise by Debbie Macino, HUM Family Promise Coordinator
HUM opened its doors to four families in the Family Promise program on June 28. I had attended planning meetings and training sessions for the past year. Pastor Ron, Sue and Jessie and Tom and I were greeting the families and sharing the first meal. I watched nervously as four frightened, apprehensive families walked through the front door. We each took a family to their sleeping quarters, and I was with the family with the baby (no surprise there!). We walked into the nursery and the mom looked at me in disbelief and asked me if they were really allowed to stay in there. I told her it was their room for the week and as her eyes filled with tears, she said she had never seen such an awesome room, and asked if she could hug me. I started to relax a little.
After the families had time to settle in and the children checked out the playground we sat down to eat. Pastor Ron offered some words of encouragement and led us in prayer. The families quickly put us at ease, and we shared good food and pleasant conversation. Later that night I got a call about a minor emergency with the baby. I came to the church, we dealt with the problem and everyone settled in for the night. The first night was pretty chaotic, but everyone became comfortable here and the week went without a hitch.
Let me tell you a little bit about these wonderful families:
Our youngest family was a married couple, Justin and Leslie, with an absolutely adorable seven week old baby, Alyssa.
Amy has three boys: Daniel, 15; Zach, 12; and Gabriel, 10. Daniel has some health problems and was taken to a hospital on Monday. He was not with us the rest of the week.
Sasha is the single mom of O’Shea, a 9 year old boy.
Shawntell is the mother of Nicholas, 6; and Ciara, a 7 year old who goes by the name of Betty. Shawntell’s 23 year old brother, Joey, is also with them. Unfortunately, the week after they were with us, this family voluntarily left the program. They were replaced with a single mom and her 10 year old son.
It didn’t take long until we fell in love with these families and they became a part of our family. We cried with them as they shared their stories with us. Some of them came from nice homes and had good lives. Some had very difficult childhoods, and were the product of dysfunctional families. They all watched helplessly as their lives fell apart and they ended up in shelters, and worse, Joey was living on the streets of Akron.
The families really didn’t know each other that well when they came to us. As the week went on, they bonded and became a big family.
One of the rules of the program is that you are not allowed to proselytize. This is understandable since they go to a different church each week. The adults liked to sit in the kitchen and talk after the children were in bed. One night they started asking Nancy Moore and Jan Contestabile about the Bible. They are all church-going people, but they all had questions. Nancy gave them Bibles to use, and they had a really good talk that night.
It was so wonderful to see Sally Allen there every night playing board games with the children. They absolutely adored Sally, and if she wasn’t there they were always asking when she was coming.
Saturday was the Fourth of July, so we celebrated with the families. Tim Downs and Dave Harriett treated everyone to a huge breakfast of eggs, bacon, sausage and hash browns. Pastor Ron and Sue took the families to the Howland Parade. Nancy and Dennis Moore and Nancy’s mom spent the afternoon with them; Nancy had organized games and prizes, and the families really enjoyed the day. They really appreciated being at our church instead of spending the day at the Day Center. Tom and I spent the evening with them. We took them to the Packard Band concert, where they were excited to see Nancy Moore in the band. We stayed for fireworks and spent the next hour trying to remember what street we parked on and then touring the back streets of Warren trying to avoid traffic. We all laughed until our sides ached. O’Shea made Tom promise he wouldn’t “drive crazy anymore” and made me promise I would never give anyone directions again.
We got back to church around 11:30 p.m. and everyone went to bed. Sasha, Joey and I couldn’t sleep so we got up and watched movies all night.
Sunday morning Tom and I made pancakes and sausage, but breakfast was pretty subdued. We were all dreading saying goodbye, and the families were nervous about going to the next church.
The families all attended worship. Zach went up for the children’s sermon and pretty much took over, answering all of Sue‘s questions and even reciting a poem. Sandy Dunlosky presented Leslie and Justin with a beautiful baby blanket made by the Morning Glories craft group.
After the service we had lunch and packed up to leave. Nancy and Dennis Moore and Tom and I took them to the Day Center. There were a lot of tears shed as we said our goodbyes. Patty DiGiacobbe, the director, told me Sasha came in crying. She asked her what was wrong and Sasha told her that she had just said goodbye to an amazing group of people. She told Patty that she felt loved for the first time in her life. She said she felt more loved by us than she ever did from her own family.
Shawntell asked me if we were angels, because no one had ever been that nice to her in her whole life, including her family. Joey said he wished he could stay at our church forever, because that was the happiest time he ever had in his life. Amy came to us a crying, emotional wreck. She left us a happy, confident woman. She told me she was determined to find a job, get a house, and give her boys a good life. I believe her!
All four families told me we touched their lives, and they will never be the same. They got it wrong. It was they who touched our lives.
I would like to thank everyone who contributed in any way. I thank all those who contributed food or money, those who prepared meals and shared them with the families, and those who spent the night. There are too many people to mention, but I would like especially to thank Jan Rice, Nancy Moore, Sally Allen and Shari Dillon. Jan organized all the food for the week. They were so well fed. They kept telling me all week they have never seen so much good food. Nancy organized the overnight
supervisors and did so much more. Nancy was my sounding board all week and she spent endless hours with the families. Sally was there every night playing games with the children, doing laundry for the families, and “mothering” them all. That was something they had never experienced before. Shari spent a lot of time with the families as well. Pastor Ron was so supportive, and dealt with a lot of obstacles that were thrown at us. I would also like to say thanks to my husband, Tom, and Dennis Moore for being so supportive, and to Dennis for “having our backs” that first night.
We will host families again the week of September 27. Please prayerfully consider being a part of this wonderful ministry.
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What if Family Promise of Mahoning Valley earned a donation every time you searched the Internet? Or how about if a percentage of every purchase you made online went to support our cause? Well, now it can!
GoodSearch.com is a new Yahoo-powered search engine that donates half its advertising revenue, about a penny per search, to the charities its users designate. Use it just as you would any search engine, get quality search results from Yahoo, and watch the donations add up!
GoodShop.com is a new online shopping mall which donates up to 37 percent of each purchase to your favorite cause! Hundreds of great stores including Amazon, Target, Gap, Best Buy, ebay, Macy's and Barnes & Noble have teamed up with GoodShop and every time you place an order, youl be supporting your favorite cause.
Just go to www.goodsearch.com and be sure to enter Family Promise of Mahoning Valley as the charity you want to support. And, be sure to spread the word!
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| From the June 2009 Bell: |
Family Promise is set to open on June 21. Howland Community Church will be the first church to host the families and HUM will be the second. We need people to provide food for the dinners each evening, and also food for the guests to fix their own breakfast (cereal, bread, bagels, milk, juice, etc.) and food for the guests to pack lunches. We also need people to spend the night (a man and a woman) and an Overnight Coordinator. There are sign up sheets in the narthex to provide food, to help Jan Rice (our Meals Coordinator), make phone calls to set up the meals, and to spend the night. Please keep in mind that when you provide food for dinner you are to stay and eat with the families. The families will prepare their own breakfast and pack their own lunches.
There will be a training session for everyone who wants to be a part of this program. This is the only program in the area that helps families stay together while they get back on their feet. These people are not chronically homeless, but have lost their homes through no fault of their own. They do not have drug, alcohol or mental health issues, and they have no criminal records. They are carefully screened before they are admitted into the program. We at HUM are very excited to be a part of this. Please prayerfully consider how you can help. Please see Pastor Ron, Debbie Macino, Wendy Downs, or Dave Lowman if you have any questions.
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| From the May 2009 Bell: |
A Family Promise Day Center open house and soup cook-off is planned for Saturday, May 16 from 12—3 p.m. Drop in to the day center during this time. You will see the facility and meet other church folks from the tri-county area who will be servicing also as Family Promise hosts.
Whether you are a professional or amateur, you may also enter your favorite soup in the cook-off. Registration forms (professional and amateur) are available in the church office. Completed forms should be faxed to the Howland Community Church at 330-856-3628 as soon as possible (we can do this from the church office). The center is located in the Girard First United Methodist Church, 22 N. Market St., Girard.
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| From the March 2009 Bell: |
Family Promise, our program to help the homeless families of this area, is closer to becoming a reality. We now have eight churches that have committed to participate in housing homeless families. Our goal is to have twelve participating churches, but we can begin the program with ten churches—we are hoping to open in May.
Please prayerfully consider how you can be a part of this exciting program. We need someone to coordinate meals and someone to coordinate overnight volunteers. Please contact Debbie Macino at 330-372-7289 if this is something you feel called to do. We will also need people to provide meals, eat with the guests, and spend the night.
We are in need of a building to house the day center and a 15 passenger van. Please contact Debbie Macino, Dave Lowman, or Wendy Downs if you know of any.
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| From the October 2008 Bell: |
This summer Pastor Ron showed a video and spoke about Family Promise. Family Promise of Mahoning Valley is a new and innovative way to help low-income families achieve and sustain their independence. Around the country, Family Promise is helping homeless families achieve independence, providing congregations with local mission activities, creating initiatives that meet community needs, giving people of all ages meaningful volunteer opportunities and building public awareness of homelessness and the needs of low-income people.
Family Promise provides shelter, meals and comprehensive assistance to homeless families. In the process, Family Promise often becomes a catalyst for community initiatives, such as transitional housing, parenting classes, and job training programs. As the work continues, it brings people together, building bridges and fostering relationships that stretch across class, racial and religious boundaries.
Pastor Ron took a poll of the congregation that Sunday and we overwhelmingly approved our church to become a part of this great mission.
Family Promise is a network of churches that offers homeless families a place to sleep and balanced meals while they search for work and a home. Each church will host three or four families for one week about four times each year. These are families who have fallen through the cracks. They are not chronically homeless or chronically unemployed. They have no drug, alcohol, or mental health issues. They are families who have lost their homes because of illness or injury, workplace closure, and/or loss of their home due to inability to keep up with inflated mortgages.
The families will arrive at the church at 5:30 p.m. We will provide dinner and eat with them. After everything is cleaned up, we leave. Beds are provided by Family Promise, and will be delivered at the beginning of the week and picked up at the end of the week. Two members of our church (one man and one woman) will spend the night at the church. We provide food for them to prepare their own breakfast and pack a lunch. They will be picked up at 7:00 a.m. and taken to the Day Center, where they will use their day time to look for permanent housing and employment.
Five HUM members, Wendy Downs, Bonnie Johnson, Dave Lowman, and Tom and Debbie Macino are serving on the board. Wendy was elected treasurer, and Dave was elected vice-president.
On Make A Difference Day, October 25, we are setting up a Cardboard Box City on the front lawn of Howland Community Church. We are looking for people to spend the night to raise awareness of the program and also to raise money through sponsorship. We ask you to sponsor one or more of our temporary residents of Cardboard Box City. The event begins at 4:30 p.m. and ends at 7:00 a.m.
See any of the HUM board members for more information or to sign up to participate.
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Howland United Methodist Church
730 Howland Wilson Rd NE
Warren, OH 44484
Phone: 330-856-3463
Fax: 330-856-7037
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