May 2008

Family Promise recently welcomed two new affiliates.

Family Promise of North Idaho

We are pleased to announce the opening of Family Promise of North Idaho, serving

Volunteers hard at work during the network's first training.

Coeur d’Alene and the surrounding area.  It is Family Promise’s 128th Affiliate, and the first network in the state of Idaho.

Opening with 11 hosts, the IHN is comprised of diverse congregations. The day center is currently an apartment owned by the Thryve Coeur d’Alene church, and another church will soon finalize plans to establish a permanent day center in a school building on its property. The affiliate director is Cindy Wood, whose experience in group homes and youth ministry is augmented by a passion for the program, bred from her volunteering in the IHN in Bozeman, MT.

Community Presbyterian in Post Falls welcomed the network’s first guest family, and the scheduled volunteers for that night were Family Promise of North Idaho’s Board President and his wife. The first guests are a mom and her two daughters, a pre-teen and a toddler. Laid off from her job in construction, she turned to the network because no other option allowed her to keep her family together.

Family Promise of Lorain County

We are pleased to welcome our newest affiliate, Family Promise of Lorain County, Ohio.  The Affiliate officially opened its doors on Easter Sunday, March 23, led by Executive Director Nicolle Pierse, a talented social service professional.  The Affiliate opens with ten host and ten support congregations, including a local mosque, and a day center occupying a house in Elyria. 

With neighboring Cleveland’s IHN serving as a model, Family Promise of Lorain County started when several local service providers began exploring solutions to the county’s family homelessness problems.  Every agency in the community reports turning away multiple families per week, or even per day. The county’s image of bedroom communities and leafy college campuses belies a 12% poverty rate, families camping in county parks and an estimated 28 shelter beds in a county with nearly 300,000 residents.

The network welcomed their first guest at Christ Lutheran Church.

The first host congregation, Christ Lutheran Church in Avon Lake, was thrilled to celebrate Easter with the Affiliate’s first guest family. The congregation welcomed a mother, a nursing student, and her 3-year-old daughter.  On their way to the church for the first night, the daughter asked her mom if they could have her favorite dinner, fried chicken. Mom explained that they could ask the church if it would be possible to have that later in the week. The dinner that first night, of course, turned out to be fried chicken.

Updates

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