Happy New Year! On behalf of the THSRRP, ("Team Homeless Shelter Room Renovation Project"), I wanted to update you on our project. As a reminder our project is to renovate some, the number is currently undetermined at this time and dependent on donations, of the rooms used by families at the Interfaith Family Shelter in Everett. The shelter provides 90-120 days of emergency shelter for families. It survives on an extremely limited budget. Homelessness continues to increase, with the largest population being that of single women and two-parent families with children. When families are homeless it threatens the overall health of our community. In Snohomish County the lack of affordable housing is one of many reasons families become homeless. At the Interfaith Family Shelter they strive to go beyond providing a place to stay. They strive to break the cycle of homelessness, and rebuild lives. Families participate in life skills classes as well as children's educational, developmental and recreational programs.
Our team has spent time with the Interfaith Shelter staff identifying and prioritizing their needs as well as time as a team brainstorming and planning. We have learned that their greatest need is for beds and mattresses. The more beds we can fit in to a room, comfortably, the better! We have the potential to expand the number of families the shelter serves if we can maximize the number of beds in each room. That would be so exciting to actually contribute to increasing the number of homeless families served in Snohomish County. We hope to add some additional improvements to the project scope such as sink/vanities, carpeting and paint, depending on our fundraising and product donation efforts. We have developed a draft project scope we hope to finalize the first week of January. Our fundraising and product donation efforts will kick off in early January.
How can you help? You'll be hearing from us soon as we launch our fundraising and volunteer recruitment efforts. We want your ideas, names of contacts that could be helpful, donations, connections you have with organizations who may be interested in assisting us, etc. This is a project that many can participate in and make a direct difference on homeless families in Snohomish County.
For more information about our project or the Interfaith Family Shelter you can contact anyone from our project team. Our team members are: Stacy Vance, Keith Kubie, Heather Coleman, Robert Waddle and myself.
Lori Cummings
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