Volunteers with a new community coalition are banking on holiday spirits to boost their efforts to start a new program to lift the less fortunate in Tooele County out of homelessness.
Family Promise, an interfaith network of local churches and individuals, set up an information and fundraising booth outside of the Tooele Walmart store on Monday
The booth was open today and will be manned Tuesday from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m.
The group is trying to raise $100,000 to launch a program that uses existing community facilities to provide a safe place for homeless families until the families are able to get into their own place, according to Pete Kirchoff, a member of the group’s organizing committee,
“We already have $35,000 raised,” Kirchoff said. “We are outside Walmart this week with donation boxes that look like little houses. We are challenging shoppers to donate the cumulative age of their children in dollars.”
The Family Promise Program is part of a national interfaith network.
Each congregation involved in Family Promise takes a turn and hosts a group of homeless families for one week, providing meals and overnight lodging in their church building. Families stay at the church from 5 p.m. to 8 a.m.
During the daytime, Family Promise operates a day center, often in donated space, that provides showers and laundry while the program director, a professional social worker, provides case management services helping families to move toward independence,
Tooele County is not without homeless families and many of them have children, according to Kirchoff.
The Tooele County School District identified over 600 children last year that were considered homeless. Some of them lived in tents, cars, trailers or motel rooms. Some slept temporarily on a friend’s couch or in a neighbor’s basement, Kirchoff said.
The typical annual budget for a Family Promise Program is around $100,000 a year, according to the organization’s national leaders.
There are 182 Family Promise networks throughout the country. One is located in Salt Lake City.
The Salt Lake Family Promise network reported that in 2012 it served 33 families with 111 people. It also reported that 93 percent of the families served successfully transitioned into stable housing.
Currently, the New Life Christian Fellowship, the Tooele United Methodist Church, and the First Baptist Church of Tooele have signed as host congregations, according to Kirchoff.
“A total of seven or eight congregations are needed to start a program,” he said. “We have several others looking at the program. With them and donations of funds, we hope to get the program off the ground in 2015.”
Local volunteers from Family Promise will be outside in front of Walmart from 11 a.m. until 7 p.m. on Wednesday.
More information about the local Family Promise Program can also be found on the Facebook page, “Family Promise of Tooele County.”