Our Mission
To bring the faith community together to help families regain their housing, their independence and their dignity.
needs, preparing a budget,living within your means and debt repayment plans. It is our goal that workshop participants will be able to put into practice behaviors that will ensure long term financial stability.
Our next workshops are scheduled for March 9th and April 13th. They are held at the PA CareerLINK building at 300 Indian Springs Road from 8:45 am until 12:15 pm.
If you are interested in join-ing us or know someone who could benefit from this type of workshop, please pre-register by calling the Day Center at 724 464-5220.
FROM THE DIRECTOR’S
DESK
As of December 2015, we have entered our 5th year of operation. To date we have provided service to 44 fami-lies-57 Adults and 79 chil-dren. Our volunteer base has grown to 700+.
Our families like so many of others struggle financially. Family Promise partners with 9 other community agencies and 5 local banks to provide financial literacy workshops to Indiana Co. residents.
Topics covered by these workshops include tracking spending habits, wants vs.
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Indiana County Family Promise
Issue #7
Volunteer
Newsletter
Winter
2016
of Indiana County
Family Promise of Indiana Co. 1292 B Old RT 119 HWY N. Indiana, PA 15701 724 464-5220 ihnindiana@gmail.comVisit our Website at:
http://www.familypromiseindianapa.com/
Board of Directors
Becky Driscoll, PresKathy Koons, VP Jeff Mack, Treas Donna Overdorff, Sec
Larry Buterbaugh Dan Cunkelman Brett Dinger Patrick Haberfield Aaron Lehman Reba Johnson Volunteer Opportunities
Volunteer at the Day Center
Assist with Fund Raising
Assist with transporting fami-lies to appointments, etc
Help families move into their new homes
Pick up donations
And much more!
Call the Day Center to see how you can help!
Wish List
Laundry Detergent Fabric Softener Sheets
Large Trash Bags Kitchen Trash Bags
Dish Soap Hand Soap Cleaning Supplies Toilet Paper Paper Towels Office Supplies Gift Cards
If you donate to United Way through your employer, please
con-sider designating Family Promise as the recipient of your donation.
Financial Collaboration Partners
Alice Paul House PA Careerlink The CARE Center Dept of Human Services
Family Promise Housing Authority of
Indi-ana Co. ICCAP
IC Planning & Development Project Share
Collaboration Banks
First Commonwealth Bank Indiana First Bank Marion Center Bank
PNC S&T Bank
Family Promise of Indiana County, Inc. is recognized by the IRS as a 501 C 3 non-profit organization. All donations are tax-deductible to the full extent of the law. The official registration and financial information for Family Promise of Indiana County, Inc. may be obtained from the PA Department of State by calling toll free 1-800-732-0999. Registration does not imply endorsement.
Page 2
Volunteer Newsletter
3rd Annual OUR PROMISE TO CHILDREN
Luncheon
Special thanks to our Sponsors
ATHENA Award Recipients
Indiana Lions Club
Indiana Midday Rotary
Indiana Networking
Keystone Fundraising Solutions
Kiwanis Club of Indiana
Knights of Columbus, Father McNelis Council 148
Kathy Koons
Donna Overdorff
Carole Reed
Fundraising 39% Churches 17% Corporations/Businesses 13% Individuals 12% Grants 4%Other 15%-(Board giving, Transition House Income etc)
**Family Promise receives no government money
LASAGNE DINNER FUND-RAISER
Hosted by the Homer City United Methodist Church, Saturday, March 5th, 5-7 PM in Asbury Hall at the church. Tickets are : $8.00 Adults — $4.00 for children under 12. Take-out
avail-able.
Tristan, age13
Page 3
Volunteer Newsletter
Have you ever been homeless? I have. It all stated with the death of my
Grand-pap Haggerty. He passed away September 30, 2013 from Colon Cancer which spread
to other parts of his body. He was an honest, hardworking man. He’d give you the
shirt off his back. So believe me when I say, he wouldn’t approve what I’m about to
tell you. As if losing him wasn't enough, insult to injury was cruelly added.
Appar-ently, there wasn’t a life insurance policy. His death caused a financial burden to my
grandmother. Unknown to my mother, brother, sister and I, a decision was made
con-cerning my grandmother’s best interests. My uncle, his wife and their son offered to
purchase the residence for the remainder owed. This undermined the agreement of 6
years that my mother had entered into with my grandparents. Once a handshake or a
man’s word meant something. Now, you must get everything in writing. My mom
didn’t have the financial means to fight this in court. We were out on Nov 3, 2014.
The place we went to rent fell though, now what?
The first week, we rented an RV. The next two weeks we rented a motel room. We were able to keep our two adorable
dogs with us. Unfortunately, money only goes so far. Soon we had to go into Family Promise. It is a program that
pro-vides food, shelter, life skills and emotional support to families in need. For us this meant facing another loss, our pets.
We had to give them back to their former owner. We hold hope in our hearts that we will be able to get them back
someday. Again we lost a loved one to cancer, our Pappy Bubba. By this point, we were already so broken. To make
matters even worse, my father out of the blue tried to regain custody of my sister and I. It’s like...WHAT? He has not
lived up to the standard definition of a father. He distanced himself from us for the past few years to barely any
acknowledgement at all. I can’t say I miss his angry outbursts. I miss my expectations of what he should be. That was a
very difficult time for our mom. Thankfully, we got to stay with our mom. It’s important to tell you about Family
Promise.
When you are in Family Promise you move from church to church every Sunday. The daycenter is where the majority
of time is spent. It is here that you are assigned space for your clothing, personal items and groceries. Each family is
given a color bin and items are marked accordingly. There can be 4 families or approximately 14 people maximum. A
shower and laundry schedule are posted to follow. There are many rules that serve as guidelines. It is in the evenings
and weekends that we are at the host church. It is here that supper is provided by a volunteer. Everyone helps set the
table and doing the dishes and clean up after. Homework is done. Either movies or game time occurs. Set bedtimes
exist for children and adults. We sometimes went on outings like Dairy Queen, bowling, and the last Festival of Lights.
We were able to attend the different church services.
We officially entered the program on Nov. 24, 2014. At first it was very hard to adapt. Everyone has been so kind. We
established a family like atmosphere with some of the other families along the way. This experience has shaped my life
significantly. I’ve learned that some people never change. As hard as it is to believe, complete strangers can open their
hearts up to you with no strings attached. We can be inspired by their acts of kindness and pay it forward. That is was
just one of the experiences that has changed my life.
Tristan was given a homework assignment to write about an experience that changed his life. He
wrote about his experience with Family Promise and has given his permission to share his story.
SUPPORT FAMILY PROMISE WHEN YOU SHOP
Do you shop on Amazon? If so, you can support Family Promise every time you make a purchase. It’s very easy…...Just go to the Family Promise website (http://
www.familypromiseindianapa.com/) and click on the link: (http:// smile.amazon.com/ch/27-4016322). That’s all there is to it!
Following those links will take you to your login page for your Amazon account. With every purchase you make, Amazon will donate 0.5% of the purchase price to Family Promise of Indiana County.
Family Promise
was the
recipi-ent of over 250
stuffed animals
at Christmas
time due to the
generosity of
PetSmart
shop-pers.
New Life Lutheran Church in Marion
Cen-ter welcomed our families to Thanksgiving
Dinner this year.
The band 7 Mile Run
donat-ed their time and talents to
entertain people who
at-tended our Valentine’s Day
Thank you Moose Riders!
The Moose Riders topped off a year of support for Family Promise by hosting our Christmas Party. At that time, they presented us with a check for $2000. They provided food and pre-sents for 14 of our families. They also took family pictures and gave our families framed portraits.Employment Opportunity:
House Monitor
-Part time, 20 hours per week. Work hours will have some flexibility. The House Monitor
is responsible for monitoring client activity in and around the Day Center to ensure adequacy of facilities
and safety of all program participants, and to provide office support. High School education required, some
college preferred. Send resume to
ihnindiana@gmail.com
or Network Director, 1292B Old Route 119
HWY N, Indiana, PA 15701.
We would like to introduce Rylynn Marie Shaffer our wonderful baby girl. She was born into the Family Promise family 2-13-16. Sami and I would like to take this opportunity to express our deepest gratitude to Family Promise and to each and every volunteer. Because of you we were able to bring our child into this world fully equipped to care for her and that’s a wonderful feeling. You all have provided us with everything we need to raise our baby. We have not needed to spend a single dollar of our money and that’s amazing. You have flooded us with donated items, equipment and gift cards. The generosity you have shown us has been endless. Every donation, every warm place to stay, each meal made for us has in a way helped to ensure Rylynn is safe, warm and healthy.
Family Promise is an amazing program run by an amazing person. Carole Reed has done everything she could to assist us. This program would not be possible without Ms. Carole and we thank her from the bottom of our hearts. To you volunteers-our endless thanks. Without you this program would surely fall apart. Each one of you no matter how big or small of a part you play in Family Promise ensures it’s ongoing operation. You are truly acting as God’s children and are lights in a sometimes dark world and we love you for that!
On a personal note, I must express my gratitude to this program. As many of you know I have made some huge life-style changes that I would not have been able to do without Family Promise. This has allowed me to prepare myself to be a father to my child. This may lean toward the dramatic but believe me the next time you look in a mirror stop for a moment, look at yourself and smile. Realize that you have helped to save three lives. If I didn’t have this opportunity to make changes surely I would have at some point self destructed. Then where would that have left Sami and Rylynn? As I write this there are tears in my eyes but not shameful ones as they used to be. But tears of gratitude and love be-cause I’ve been given a second chance in my life and many people do not get that opportunity. So with all our hearts we thank you all! Love,
