Adopt a Homeless Senior Project
Dear Friends,
This has been a rich year for me with travel, a new and most loveable puppy, wonderful retreats, teaching precious classes & counseling precious students, losing Sally, Janet’s sister-in-law and spending invaluable time with family and continuing to love and enjoy Janet. Alongside all of this, the Adopt a Homeless Senior Project has had a new boost of energy as a result of a great response to our fun and informative booth at the Solano Stroll. We have several more volunteers who are upping the vitality level of the project.
Our project, Adopt a Homeless Senior is one Berkeley neighborhood’s attempt to have some positive impact on homelessness in the Bay Area”. We have chosen a goal that we feel is doable: the majority of Alameda County’s homeless are over 50, and for an average cost of $17,000 we can get one homeless senior off the streets and into permanent housing. With the support of neighbors in the four blocks of north Keeler Avenue, Berkeley, we have achieved more than half of that sum. By widening our appeal to friends like you, we think we could raise $17,000 by the end of the year.
We aren’t, of course, equipped to “adopt” a homeless senior on our own. We are collaborating with St. Mary’s Center in Oakland, a respected institution (secular in spite of its name, and non-profit) that has been working successfully with Alameda County’s homeless for 46 years. $17,000 is what it costs St. Mary’s, on average, to provide one homeless person with one year of services including (but not limited to!:
emergency shelter & meals
mental-health services
money-management counseling,
addiction recovery,
transitional housing and
low-income housing
You can read more about them at http://www.stmaryscenter.org. I have also attached a chart that outlines their homeless senior services (along with services for housed low-income seniors and a preschool). I can say personally that a visit to St. Mary’s Center makes your heart sing.
Could you help us to achieve our $17,000 goal by the end of the year? If you’d like to contribute, you can send a check to St. Mary’s Center, 925 Brockhurst St., Oakland CA 94608. Make sure to mark your check Adopt a Homeless Senior or AHS.
For online donations, go to this link. Under “Designation” type “AHS”
You would be making a tangible contribution to addressing homelessness in the Bay Area.
Thank you!
Barbara
This entry was posted in Barbara Reiner, Counseling, Uncategorized and tagged Homeless Project.
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