August 2008

Family Promise recently welcomed three new affiliates.

Family Promise of Beaufort County

Family Promise of Beaufort recently opened as our 131st Affiliate nationwide, and the fourth in South Carolina.

A rural community with more than 150,000 residents, Beaufort County previously had no shelters for families. The new Affiliate opens with 13 host congregations and a significant number of supports.  A centrally located day center in an office building in Bluffton allows easy access to the area’s islands and inland congregations.  Affiliate director Emily Bugay has a unique and ideal background for the job: she grew up as a member of a host congregation and later served at an internship at the Greenville Area IHN.

St. John’s Lutheran Church in Beaufort hosted the Affiliate’s first guest family, a mother and her two boys, ages 5 and 1.  School started the same week, and so not only does the family have a safe, secure temporary home in the network, it also had an entire congregation awaiting the 5-year-old’s first day of kindergarten, and sharing supplies and support.

Family Promise of Warren County

We are happy to announce the opening of our 130th Affiliate, Family Promise of Warren County, NJ, the 13th affiliate in the Garden State.  With no shelters except one for victims of domestic violence, and with the neighboring IHNs in Sussex and Hunterdon Counties often seeing half their guests originating from Warren County, the need for shelter and services in this largely rural community was stark.

The new Affiliate starts with nine host congregations and over a dozen support

The children's play room after completion of the day center renovations!

congregations, ranging from mainline to evangelical to non-denominational to Mennonite.  In the small town of Oxford with a view of the hills of western New Jersey, the day center is at Oxford Second Presbyterian Church at the manse, a large house that was refurbished in partnership with Habitat for Humanity. The Affiliate’s director is Bob Frankenfield, who has 30 years of experience in social services in Warren County, and has been involved since the beginning of the Affiliate’s development.

Family Promise of Monroe County

Family Promise recently welcomed its 129th affiliate, Family Promise of Monroe County, PA, the ninth operating affiliate in the Keystone State.  The IHN officially opened its doors to two families on May 18.

Home to resort and ski areas of the Pocono Mountains and part of the Delaware Water Gap, Monroe County has also become a remote suburb to New York and Philadelphia.  Since 2000, the county’s population has grown by 20%, to more than 162,000 residents. But without a single family shelter or the attendant social service infrastructure of a major city, family homelessness in the county is on the rise.

Family Promise of Monroe County is led by director Kathryn Aira, whose background includes diverse fields of social work, and the network operates their day center in a small office building next to the Wesleyan Church in Stroudsburg. Lighthouse World Prayer, one of thirteen host congregations, served as the first host for two guest families.

Each family faced a series of setbacks that brought them to Family Promise. One family of four lost their home to a mortgage foreclosure, moved to Monroe County, then suffered a job loss. The other, a family of 10, lost a car, job and home in quick succession while struggling to stay afloat paycheck to paycheck.

Aside from the affiliate’s grand opening, there was much more to celebrate during that first week.  On the third night of hosting, one more guest arrived: the daughter of one of the guest families welcomed a new baby boy!

Updates

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