This week, our featured charity is Neighborhood Service Organization.
Neighborhood Service Organization (NSO) is a nonprofit human service agency with a mission to be “Always Within Reach” for Metro Detroit’s most vulnerable citizens. Since it was founded in 1955, the scope and variety of services offered by NSO have grown into a network of sophisticated, vertically integrated programs that have received local, statewide and national recognition. More than 300 dedicated staff members serve more than 100,000 people in Southeast Michigan each year. Among NSO’s most important services are those provided to homeless adults in Detroit. In April 2011, NSO broke ground on renovations to the former Michigan Bell Building. The NSO Bell Building will provide one bedroom apartments and vital supportive services to 155 homeless adults who are living on the streets at this moment. With a stable home and the support they need to combat mental illness, substance abuse, and other challenges, these adults will be able to change the trajectory of their lives. To help meet the cost of renovating the apartments and providing support services to residents, NSO is launching the A Place to Call Home campaign giving community members the opportunity to sponsor an apartment and provide a home for our neighbors in need.
Nearly 1 in 5 people faces hunger daily in Metropolitan Detroit. Some of them live right next door to you. For too many, each day means an agonizing choice between paying rent and utility bills, handling medical expenses or providing food for their families. It shouldn’t be this way. That’s why we’re working to end hunger in our community.
Forgotten Harvest is proud to announce we have been selected as Art Van Furniture’s #1 charitable initiative for 2013. Over the course of the next five years, Forgotten Harvest will be able to provide over five million meals to those in need due to the generous gift that accompanies this designation. Take the Art Van Charity Challenge. Help those in need this year. Your donation dollar combined with an Art Van donation dollar can provide ten meals to those in need.
Donate Now > or call our donation line at (888) 332-7140.
This week, our featured charity is Covenant House Michigan.
Covenant House Michigan is a sanctuary for homeless and at-risk young people who have nowhere to go. Kids who come to our doors have been abused and neglected, have slept on friends’ couches or in abandoned buildings. These kids have been forgotten by those who are supposed to care about them the most. When they come through our gates, they become part of a family. Our staff, volunteers and donors carry out our mission based on faith and the belief that all of God’s children deserve unconditional love, respect and hope. We provide shelter, educational and vocational programs, as well as other support services, to help youth overcome hurdles such as homelessness, unemployment, inadequate education, violence, drugs and gangs. Our goal is to redirect them onto a path toward meaningful and successful adulthood. CHM has come to be known by Detroit area young people as a place they can go to build a better future and be treated with respect and unconditional love. Over 45,000 youth have been served by CHM since its inception in September, 1997.
This week, our featured charity is Active Faith Community Services.
For 24 years, Active Faith Community Services has assisted low-income households residing within the 84 square mile South Lyon School District. Our mission is to provide long term and temporary assistance to those who have fallen on difficult times in hopes of returning them to the independent pursuit of their life’s goals. We were established as a food pantry and clothing closet and we have never veered from that original mission which was to help individuals become self sufficient and realizing that it is only as we develop others that we permanently succeed. Active Faith is constantly changing to meet the needs of the community. We work through a case management program in which we offer individuals and families food, counseling, clothing and children’s tutoring. Last year Active Faith dispersed 245,087.5 pounds of food to an estimated 1,627 individuals. By partnering with a large volunteer workforce and managing finances wisely, Active Faith is able to devote over $0.90 of every dollar to client services. We place great emphasis on being able to stretch all our resources to address the diverse problems of poverty. Photographs of our food pantry and tutoring program are attached.
This week, our featured charity is Haven House.
Haven House provides temporary housing to homeless families with children, betweeen permanent homes. We provide intensive case management while in shelter and follow each family for up to six months to assist the family in gaining more self-sufficiency. Each year we provide shelter to over 100 families, including more than 200 children. Our goal is increase self-sufficiency and financial stability and decrease the time in crisis by providing rapid re-housing funds to the families to move from shelter to housing in less than 30 days.
This week, our featured charity is Michael’s Place.
Michael’s Place is a no-cost healing center for children, teens, individuals, and families grieving the death of a loved one. Located in Traverse City, Michael’s Place serves the northwest region with innovative and compassionate support programs to ease the impact of loss. Michael’s Place provides a safe atmosphere, creates a compassionate community, and restores hope for those facing life’s greatest challenge. Michael’s Place recognizes that children’s grief is unique and helps by providing them with life coping skills, a positive and safe outlet to express their emotions and feelings, and the understanding that they are not alone. Through weekly support groups, children, teens, and adults are able to share their stories and learn how to survive. At Make A Memory, children and adults create special keepsakes in memory of their loved one. At Robin’s Nest, grieving children gather with mentors for best day activities and educational opportunities to help them feel normal and bring joy to their lives. In addition, Michael’s Place provides professional grief support and assistance to regional schools, businesses, and agencies. Death changes life. Michael’s Place is there to bring support, strength, and hope for today, tomorrow, and the future….one step at a time.
This week, our featured charity is North Star Reach.
North Star Reach provides life-changing camp experiences to children with serious health challenges. The accessible camp is located on a 105 acre beautifully wooded peninsula in Pinckney, Michigan. North Star Reach will be a year-round resource for the Great Lakes region through partnerships with surrounding children’s hospitals. Campers include, but are not limited to, kids with heart disease, cancer, organ transplant recipients, kids on ventilators, kids with sickle cell disease and more. All children and their families will attend North Star Reach camp free of charge. This camp experience will give these children the resources, courage and freedom they need to succeed. Camp activities are designed to allow kids to be kids, to gain their independence, foster optimism and personal growth. North Star Reach will allow children to discover a special place where anything is possible. North Star Reach is a provisional member of SeriousFun Children’s Network, a growing global network of innovative camps and programs for children with serious illnesses founded by Paul Newman in 1988.
This week, our featured charity is Open Door Outreach Center.
Open Door Outreach Center has been serving the needy of northern Oakland County for 31 years. Working within the mission statement of “providing food, clothing and referral services’, approximately 300 families receive food monthly from the food pantry, as well as clothing free from the Resale Store. When Open Door cannot help, referrals are given to other agencies that might be able to help. When extra funding permits, clients are helped with emergency needs such as utility shut-offs, eviction notices, car repairs, etc. We try to make the holiday seasons of Easter, Thanksgiving and Christmas special by providing food baskets and gifts to our families. We have a special place in our hearts for the children of our families. We provide additional healthy, kid friendly, food for families with school age children during the summer months. We give them new books for Easter and our Back-to-School Program provides children in grades K-12 backpacks with school supplies, haircuts, shoe store gift certificates and a shopping trip for clothes at a local retailer. We can’t help everyone who comes to us, but we do a good job of spending donations wisely and make them stretch as far as we can
This week’s featured charity is Robert E. Weiss Advocacy Center for Children and Youth.
The Weiss Advocacy Center exists to prevent child abuse and to help victims become children again. We do this through protection for children who need immediate help, and prevention programs that will break the cycle of child abuse. The WAC facilitates a single interview and exam in a child-friendly environment. We coordinate the efforts of a multidisciplinary team to examine the case and document the findings. We work for and with the child to make a recommendation to the judge about where that child should live. Perhaps most importantly, we are a constant presence for the child, reminding them that someone cares and is watching out for them. The Weiss Advocacy Center speaks for the voiceless; defends the defenseless; and saves those whose lives would otherwise be finished before they began.
This week, our featured charity is Ronald McDonald House of Western MI.
For the past 21 years, the Ronald McDonald House of Western Michigan has provided a home-away-from-home for families of children seeking medical treatment in our community. Over 10,000 families have used the house during a very difficult time in their lives. The 19,000 square foot facility, located on five park-like acres, has 17 bedrooms with private baths. Common rooms include a large family-style kitchen with four complete cooking areas, a dining room, living room with fireplace, sun room overlooking a playground area and walking path, laundry room, toddler playroom and a family recreation room. More than 250 volunteers care for the nearly 500 families who stay at the house each year, cooking meals, folding laundry, making beds and driving the shuttle van that transports families to and from medical facilities. Having a seriously ill or injured child is a parent’s worst nightmare. Critically ill children and their families often travel hundreds of miles from home to receive medical treatment. The Ronald McDonald House is a place for families to stay for an extended period of time, at little or no cost, with the comforts and support of home and the convenience to the world-class medical facilities in Grand Rapids.