Nonprofit Spotlight: October 2020
What a year 2020 has been! As a nonprofit helping the homeless, individuals and families in need, this year has been a year for the records. When in a normal year we would have served around 40,000 individuals with food, financial assistance, employment and seasonal programs, this year, we have already served over 90,000! Most have needed help with food as they lost jobs, have been furloughed, had work hours slashed, or had precarious economic situations compounded by the challenges of the pandemic. Likewise, however, we have seen a spike in those families close to eviction and homelessness due to being unable to pay their rent, mortgages, or utility bills. Financial assistance is being provided, but these funds are limited and are quickly being depleted. We project that with infections continuing, causing businesses to continue working under uncertainty, furloughing or laying off workers, and not re-hiring to the level they were before the pandemic, we should continue to see the high level of need for food and financial assistance that we have thru at least the first quarter of next year.
Because we would like to help around 30 families daily 3 days per week with up to $1000 of financial assistance (for rent, utilities or other emergency needs), we anticipate needing around $2,160,000 from October 2020 – March 2021, just for direct assistance to these families. We also project needing $270,000 to cover program staff costs, and $480,000 for administration costs to run all of our programs and facility thru March.
Currently, we are serving over 2500 individuals across our programs per week. This does not include those we have continued to help with our critical seasonal programs that help take some of the burden off of these struggling families’s minds – namely, our Back to School Supplies and Backpacks which we gave out to over 800 children from preschool to 12th grade in August, nor the 1000 children we will provide Christmas toys and gift cards to in December, or the 500 families that will receive grocery store gift cards so they can purchase their Thanksgiving or Christmas meal and also experience some relief and joy to celebrate the holiday season. We will collect both toys, gift cards and funds from anyone able and wanting to help us with this program coming up really soon. To help with financial assistance, or any of these many needs, please contact Mercedes Santos-Garay at msantosgaray@whamministries.org or at 832-266-1489.