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First Baptist Church felt a strong call to partner with HSHM. We saw how this model empowered these individuals and families as they worked to overcome chronic food insecurity and limited choices. We saw how the co-op helped build relationships and ownership. Home Sweet Home Ministries is a local mission that, since 1917, has been serving Christ by providing food, shelter, and hope to the hungry, homeless, and hurting in Bloomington. In our co-op model, rather than simply providing free access to food, we also began providing opportunities for our customers to acquire new skills and build their capacities.
The co-op serves low income individuals and families struggling with chronic food insecurity. One of the most common forms of charity is food for the hungry. How much of that work, though, is actually contributing to food security and long-term, sustainable progress for families? Over the past 18 months we’ve seen the co-op members fully embrace this shared responsibility model for the provision of food assistance.
Brian Lacey ’72 Fellowships will support experiences in Ghana, Samoa
When we give tours, our co-op members chime in with enthusiastic comments about their experiences. Our members tell their friends and family about the co-op and encourage them to join, too. We’ve even begun to gather data using structured surveys to measure the change in our members’ sense of hope in their lives, and anticipate that these data will support our anecdotal observations thus far.
However, in 2014, HSHM transitioned to a co-op model that allows for participants to have the opportunity to completely choose the foods with which they feed themselves and their families. Shirley, the co-op works through the combined contributions of the people being served and providing the service. We collaborate to help people achieve food security while also restoring a message of dignity, value, and capability to the process. You can feel free to reach me directly with detailed questions. You can visit our website at hshministries.org to get my email and phone number. At last we took the plunge and changed our operations over to a food co-op.
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When we tell them we need them and want them to utilize their God-given talents and abilities, they positively light up! Our Co-op Advisory Board shares responsibility with us in charting the future direction and scope of the co-op. We take their guidance on things like membership requirements, food products to stock, classes to offer, etc.
Grounds keeping during summer months.Furniture moving as needed.Painting as needed.Light construction as needed.Renovation point of contract or consultant to help us organize these activities. Meal cards, which allow non-residents to eat lunch and dinner daily in there facility. Sign up with your email address to receive news and updates. Your monthly gift of ANY amount will allow us to continue our fight to turn "home street home" into "home sweet home".
The Junction Community Center
It is easy to find volunteers excited to be a part of the Thanksgiving meal distribution. Volunteers drove more than 45 routes to deliver 263 meals. Mike Ohler was one of those volunteers helping with getting meals out the door and then cleaning up afterward. He has been volunteering with the organization for more than a decade and said that he would try to stop by pretty much any time he came to downtown. Debbie Reese, director of client services at Home Sweet Home Ministries, talks about the organization's origins and reasons for its Thanksgiving meal delivery and community meal. In October 2009, I came to stay at the Home Sweet Home Ministries for 10 weeks.
We thought we’d see a significant drop off in households when we made the switch, but we’ve seen just the opposite! In fact, even before we opened, over 100 people submitted co-op membership applications and we now serve more households as a co-op than we ever did as a food pantry . "We've served four or five times the number of people in the food pantry as we did in 2007, said Salvation Army spokeswoman Andrea Raycraft. "Our shelves are bare.
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Food service workers started in early September to cook turkeys that would be preserved until Thanksgiving, said Carol Schrenk, food services manager. In total, they cooked more than 70 turkeys, made eight gallons of gravy, prepared more than 25 pans of sides and sliced 60 pies. On Thursday, staff and volunteers were delivering more than 260 meals and then getting ready for a community meal at the shelter. They maintain a strong dedication to making sure everyone gets a Thanksgiving meal, Reese said. Emergency shelter is provided for men, women, and children experiencing homelessness. Case management, work service, educational offerings, meal services, and counseling are available.
Each year, the Home Sweet Home Ministries serve thousands of hot meals to the homeless and distribute hundreds of food boxes to the poor in our area. In these tough times, it's comforting to know that there are organizations like Home Sweet Home Ministries in Illinois that are there to help those who are struggling. This organization provides food pantries for those in need, and it's thanks to the generosity of volunteers and donors that they are able to do this important work. If you're looking for a way to help out your community, consider donating to or volunteering with Home Sweet Home Ministries. If you have a “green thumb” and a passion for helping the hungry here in our own town, we’d love to have you join us.
The Bread For Life Food Co-op is a membership-based program where patrons can either work for two hours in exchange for their groceries, or work one hour and pay $5. This model allows people to use their own capabilities to provide food for their families, according to Home Sweet Home Ministries. People also are able to choose their food instead of receiving a prepackaged box under other pantry models.
Raycraft mailed churches and schools about The Salvation Army's "dire need of nonperishable items." A food drive competition at Twin City schools runs through Dec. 8. With shelves going bare, Raycraft said the agency has had to downsize what is included in the food boxes. Washington St., had passed out as many food boxes by April this year as it did all of 2007, Raycraft said. But we still need your voice to help others learn more about who we are and where we are going as an organization and a community. “I just hope that everyone gets a Thanksgiving meal, that’s what we care about,” Reese said. Monthly deep cleaning of the shelterMonthly maintenance(i.e. light bulb replacement, fire extinguisher checks,ect.)Light handy work.
Do you have a story to share about poverty alleviation in your community? If so, please consider joining me and other NACSW members who have launched the Poverty Alleviation member interest group. We can use your help in sharing ideas and inspiration with the rest of the NACSW membership. For additional information about the Poverty Alleviation member interest group, contact Rick Chamiec-Case.
We have individuals and families that seek out Home Sweet Home from all walks of life. Most are struggling to make ends meet and are looking for help to get back out on their own. Now, with an active co-op membership in excess of 425 households, the message is clear to us – people want to be given the opportunity to provide for themselves & will jump at the chance to do so. We have people who joined the co-op that had been told they have nothing worthwhile to contribute.
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Typically, food pantries only get supplies from Midwest once a month. McCane said the two pantries, and a few more locally, now are getting supplies nearly weekly. "We're seeing a lot of new people … and more families," said Burkiewicz, spokeswoman for Home Sweet Home. "A couple of times we've had so many people for meals, some had to sit in the hallway." Last year, the organization hosted a dine-in meal but only for residents. She is glad to have it open to the wider community again.
It has been a tumultuous journey from pantry to co-op, but without a doubt worth every bump and challenge along the way. I’d like to share with you one painful realization we came to and three steps that moved us forward into a new and healthier model of charity. The downturn of the economy has forced more people to seek help feeding their families but it also has reduced the number of donations the two agencies receive. The Salvation Army has had so many requests for food boxes, officials decided not to distribute Thanksgiving baskets this year in hopes they will have enough food to fill requests for Christmas baskets.
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