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Programs and People
Kids Care, part of Vision Twin Cities, is an innovative project to get low-income women to become licensed home daycare providers. New cribs, fire extinguishers, smoke detectors, first aid kits and other supplies needed to become licensed are provided through World Vision’s gifts-in-kind and donations from churches. Since the program began in May 1997, Kids Care in Minneapolis has helped more than 50 women get the required supplies to open licensed daycare in their homes; St. Paul’s Kids Care has helped 10 women. Kids Care not only helps low-income women become business owners, it provides local child care, which is needed as parents move off welfare. So far, Kids Care-equipped providers serve 600 children.
LOVE INC, a volunteer network of churches in Ottawa County, Michigan was instrumental in the state’s pilot welfare-to-work initiative, Project Zero. Through Project Zero, the number of families on welfare went from 480 to 10 in the first year. LOVE INC networked more than 170 churches in the area: providing goods, mentors and training in job-seeking skills, home management and parenting; and building personal, supportive relationships with those in need.
Vision LA operates Second Chance Clothing Boutique, a new clothing bank for women in homeless shelters and transition houses as they seek to enter the workforce. Through its homeless family resettlement program, World Vision and a network of local churches in South Central Los Angeles are seeking to resettle women and their children who are currently living on the streets, in homeless shelters or inadequate or unsafe housing. Support includes safe shelter and meals, a variety of counseling services, assistance in finding affordable housing until resettlement, clothing and assistance in job placement.
HopeMakers Jobs Partnership, working in partnership with Hennepin County and local churches in Minneapolis/St. Paul, is designed to link church-based mentors and volunteers for one year with individuals, mostly women, who are seeking to move from welfare to the workplace. Personal mentors participate with the clients in a five- or ten-week training program and then work with them for at least a year to encourage and support them. HopeMakers also offers job seekers a needed "inside track" with employers at a "job fair." Employers conduct on-the-spot interviews for current job openings. From the pilot program last fall, seven of the first 10 participants are now employed in "living wage" jobs. More than 120 Vision Twin Cities’ churches will provide another 60 participants training and mentors in the coming year.
Vision Chicago works to improve the quality of life for children and families of Chicago primarily through collaboration with more than 500 church congregations and faith-based organizations. The goal is to move those in need from dependency to self-sufficiency. Other specific Vision Chicago programs include the Storehouse, a distribution center for building material; CityLINC, a volunteer clearinghouse; a community economic development initiative that helps community-based organizations start businesses and develop housing in impoverished neighborhoods; and Kids ‘N Need, an education supplies resource center.
The Storehouse of Vision Chicago, an 18,000-square-foot distribution warehouse, makes donated top-quality building materials available to community organizations, churches and individuals working to improve housing conditions in poor Chicago neighborhoods. It also offers a warehouse job trainee program through the Westside Joblink Collaborative, which provides job readiness training and a job database for the unemployed.
Vision Northwest, based in Seattle/Tacoma, has been instrumental in bringing together a large, diverse group of faith-based organizations and churches which successfully advocated for Charitable Choice before the state legislature; sponsored community training workshops on the church’s role with welfare reform and ways church members can assist people moving from welfare to work.
CARS (Community Auto Repair and Redistribution Service) provides reliable automobiles to persons moving from welfare to work in the Twin Cities area. Working in partnership with churches, auto-related businesses, government agencies and charitable foundations, CARS receives donations of cars and/or financial support; repairs cars as needed and gives cars to those who may need transportation to enter/stay in the workforce.
Churches At Work is an interactive national Internet-based resource directory highlighting creative ways churches and faith-based organizations throughout the United States are working to meet human needs in their communities. The objective of the site is to develop a network of church-based ministries who can share their programs and experiences with other ministries to assist people who have been affected by welfare reform. Churches at Work is a national partnership of World Vision, Bethel New Life, Call for Renewal, Christian Community Development Association, Evangelicals for Social Action, National Congress of Community Economic Development, North American Association of Christians in Social Work, Reformed Church and Sojourners. See http://www.churchesatwork.org.
Available for Interviews:
PHYLLIS FREEMAN is manager of World Vision’s gifts-in-kind (GIK) operations for Los Angeles and is GIK senior advisor to other programs in cities across the country. Her drive to help the less fortunate stems from her own experiences as a welfare recipient in 1985. Freeman has been instrumental in establishing a new clothing bank for women in Vision LA’s homeless shelters and transition houses as they seek to enter the workforce. She has a background in insurance, leadership training and the resettlement of families in need.
MARY ANN HARKEMA has been the director of LOVE INC in Lansing, Michigan since 1982. She is also the national team leader for the LOVE INC management team. LOVE INCs in Michigan were instrumental in mobilizing churches in Governor Engler’s Project Zero, a government/ private nonprofit sector initiative wherein the number of families on welfare in Ottawa County went from 480 to 10 in one year.
PAT PETERSON is the director of Vision Twin Cities, who, as a recent graduate student, developed the idea for Kids Care. This program, in Minneapolis and St. Paul, is an innovative project to get low-income women to become licensed home daycare providers; helping women become business owners; and building the capacity for child care, the need for which is increasing as parents move off welfare.
GORDON MURPHY, general manager of The Storehouse of Vision Chicago, has been the primary force behind the development this distribution center than makes donated building materials available to churches, affordable housing developers and individuals. The Storehouse also offers a warehouse job trainee program for the unemployed and the hard to employ. Murphy helped raise more than $1.5 million in donated product and brought in more than 400 members last year. Prior to working with Vision Chicago, he was president and CEO of OPPORTUNITY International.
KEVIN HUNTER is director of Northwest Vision Cities, focusing on mobilizing church-based coalitions in the Seattle, Tacoma and Spokane areas. He was instrumental in developing a large, diverse and faith-based coalition to advocate for the Charitable Choice provision before the State Legislature in Olympia. Prior to coming to World Vision, Hunter served as metro director of Young Life in Tacoma.
MARK HARDEN is mobilizing churches in the Detroit area, both urban and suburban, to come together to address needs through the LOVE INC clearinghouse model. Formerly, Harden was community development specialist for Neighborhood Service Organization. Using his years of experience as a police officer, he also was the founder and executive director of the Streetwise, Inc. youth violence prevention programs.
TOM JONES, based in the Washington, DC area, is senior advisor for World Vision in the United States. He began his life’s work in Chicago where he worked with youth and gangs during the early 1960s. In 1967, he helped organize one of the first statewide farmworker/rural development organizations in the nation. For the next seven years, he worked with migrant families in the United States and Mexico. In 1975, Jones became the founding director of the National Association of Farmworker and Rural Organizations, a coalition of more than 400 community-based organizations. In 1980, he established the Enterprise Fund, which provided technical and management support, assistance and training to hundreds of organizations, institutions and government in the U.S., Asia, Africa and Latin America. Since the 1980s, he has been a consultant to World Vision and other international and U.S.-focused development organizations.
Copyright 1998 World Vision Inc.
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