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HOPE welcomes The Arc Baton Rouge
for collaborative enterprise
Forty plus attend "Ground Dumping Ceremony"
for Raised Bed Produce Garden
Anita
Shanklin, seated, and her personal care attendant, standing, get ready
to dump buckets of dirt into the new raised bed. Shanklin is a client of
both HOPE Ministries and The Arc Baton Rouge and will work in the
new garden. She's excited about growing some tasty cucumbers. |
On Friday, May 14, more than 40
people attended a Ground Dumping Ceremony to put the first buckets of
dirt into a new, accessible raised bed on HOPE's property. Adults with
developmental and/or intellectual disabilities who are clients of The Arc Baton Rouge
will raise vegetables on site and 10% of the produce will be donated to
HOPE's Client Choice Food Pantry. The remaining produce will be sold to
pay the workers, many of whom are becoming employed for the first time
through this innovative social enterprise program.
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Our Mission:
Prevent homelessness.
Promote self-sufficiency and dignity.
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| Tickets on sale to hear Liz Murray live!
Thursday, Sept. 16 @ 7 pm | |
Liz Murray |
From homeless to Harvard... it's
an unlikely turn of events. Liz Murray's life is a triumph over
adversity and a stunning example of the importance of dreaming big.
Murray's life as the child of cocaine-addicted parents in the Bronx was
bitterly grim. There was never food in the house, everything was filthy,
drugs were everywhere and the welfare checks were spent before they
arrived.
By age 15, Murray's mom had died and she was
homeless -- living on the streets, riding the subway all night and
eating from dumpsters. Amidst this pain, Murray always imagined her life
could be much better than it was. "I started to grasp the value of the
lessons learned while living on the streets. I knew, after overcoming
those daily obstacles, that next to nothing could hold me down."
Determined to take charge of her life, Murray finished high school in
just two years while camping out in New York City parks and subway
stations.
Murray's story is exhilarating and her delivery
innocently honest, as she takes audiences on a very personal journey
where she achieves the improbable. Her story sounds like a Hollywood
movie -- and it practically is. Lifetime Television produced a movie
about Murray's life story entitled "Homeless to Harvard: The Liz Murray Story,"
which premiered in April 2003. Murray is also the recipient of Oprah
Winfrey's first ever Chutzpah Award and is currently writing her memoirs
for Hyperion, which will be released on Sept. 7. Murray received
her B.S. in Psychology from Harvard University in June 2009.
Liz will share her story with the Baton Rouge community at
7 pm on Thursday, September 16, at the Baton Rouge Marriott
Tickets are $50 each or $500 to reserve a table for 10.
Light hors d'oeuvres and cash bar.
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| Getting Ahead in a Just-Gettin'-By World © | |
Graduate
Donna Johnson presents her Action Plan to the class while
co-facilitator Dick Stonich holds her 3D "mental model", a
visual depiction of her plan for getting out of poverty. |
HOPE's Getting Ahead in a Just-Gettin'-By World © training
series is a precursor to a traditional financial literacy class
and empowers participants to create a personalized action plan for
building economic stability and getting out of poverty. Getting Ahead
not only facilitates change in financial decision-making skills, but in
other attitudes and patterns of behavior as well. The training series
helps participants better understand their circumstances related to
living in poverty, enlarge their network of existing resources, and
develop concrete plans for moving forward with confidence and a greater
sense of purpose. Along the way, participants learn many "soft skills"
necessary for success in today's job market.
Graduate
Peter Bessard was so impressed with Getting Ahead's life-changing
potential that he faithfully rode his bike to class twice a week.
Bessard presents his Action Plan while co-facilitator Denise Porter
looks on. | The
40-hour educational workshop is made up of 15 modules held twice
weekly in the evenings for approximately eight weeks, with
childcare provided. The course is co-facilitated by HOPE volunteers
Denise Porter and Dick Stonich. In June 2010, HOPE graduated six more
people from the program, bringing our cumulative graduate count
to 92. Of these, 72% report that they continue to actively work on
their action plan for getting out of poverty and have reached at least
one of their goals.
Our next Getting Ahead course begins Aug. 17.
Do you know someone who might benefit from the lessons of Getting Ahead? Have them fill out this simple form on our website to refer themselves to HOPE and we will get in touch to see if they qualify for the program.
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| Volunteer! How to help HOPE... | |
Volunteers
from the St. Andrew's United Methodist Men and Dominique Barber, former
HOPE employee and current volunteer, sport their Power of HOPE t-shirts
after a busy morning serving families in our Client Choice Food
Pantry. |
There are lots of ways you can help HOPE!
You can...
To help clients shop or stock shelves,
To interview clients or serve as a mentor,
To assist with data entry or clerical tasks,
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| Food donations needed | |
On
two Thursdays in June, children from the Mission Day Camp at First
United Methodist Church of Baton Rouge performed a valuable service for
HOPE by stocking the shelves in our Client Choice Food Pantry after our
weekly delivery from the Greater Baton Rouge Food Bank.
Can your church help out, too?  | HOPE's
Client Choice Food Pantry is in need of food now more than
ever. Due to increased demand and decreased funding to both the
Greater Baton Rouge Food Bank and HOPE, your generous donations of food
are vital to continue feeding the hungry. In 2009, HOPE
served 242,000 pounds of food to just over 14,000
people through the food pantry. The number of persons served
has increased by 12% so far in 2010.
The pantry is currently in need of the following items:
- Breakfast foods - cereal, grits, oatmeal, etc.
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Staples - flour, sugar, cornmeal
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Peanut butter and jelly
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And much, much more
For more information about sponsoring a food drive, please contact Janet Simmons at jsimmons@hopebr.org or 225-355-0702 ext. 22.
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| Do you work with people in poverty? | |
Understanding the Dynamics of Poverty is a one-day training for case managers, social workers, counselors, teachers and anyone working with people in poverty.
Participants learn about:
- what causes poverty
- how to work with people in poverty
- how to identify local resources
- what instigates changes in the community
- hidden rules of economic class
Contact Janet Simmons at 225-355-0702 ext. 22 or jsimmons@hopebr.org to find out when and where our next training will be held or how we can bring the training to you.
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| Support HOPE:
Change a family's life with your gift |
Dear Friends:
At HOPE Ministries, we take Jesus' mandate to assist the poor one step further.
We help people help themselves.
You
can help us break the chains of poverty one family at a time. What may
seem like a small amount to you tells a family "I believe in you" and
has an incredible impact on them and our community.
Over the past few years, 82% of our clients have
succeeded by meeting their financial and housing stability goals. We've
stepped up our impact in the community each year, consistently
increasing the number of families we serve. In 2010, we will help even
more people learn the life skills necessary to become self-sufficient in
our Family Mentoring Program and create their own action plan to build
economic stability in our Getting Ahead courses.
Your gift will help change someone's life.
Thanks in advance for helping us
prevent homelessness and promote self-sufficiency and dignity here in
the Baton Rouge community.
Kindly,
Renee Craft
Executive Director |
| Support HOPE:
Apply for a Capital One Affinity Card! |
Click one of the cards to find out how you can support HOPE every time you go shopping!
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| Support HOPE:
Make a donation online! |
It's easy to make a one-time donation online. Just click on the "doors of HOPE"
to make a safe, secure donation with PayPal! | |
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