This February be a Valentine for a homeless person –
* speak with a homeless person,
* give to a homeless shelter,
* volunteer at a soup kitchen…….
We still need people or organizations to sign up to provide evening meals for our guests by clicking here. Scroll down the list to the date of your choice.
REACH members come from all over our community and belong to different faith groups but we share this in common:
We believe that all people should be shown hospitality and be treated with respect and dignity.
Three of our staff attended a Homelessness workshop at Huther Doyle. The workshop was led by Nick Coulter of PCHO.
Andy Carey, leader of our Social Work team led a staff workshop on, among other things, de-escalation skills when guests get out of hand.
Our web page has now been fully re-designed and is being hosted by anew server. Our thanks to Mark Jackson and Chris Edes for taking care of this work. Check it out at Reachadvocacy.org. If this link takes you to our old Wixsite please empty this site from the cache from your browser. To do this, depending on your browser, hold down the shift or option key while clicking the refresh key. Please note that material to be uploaded to this site should be sent to Mark Jackson at mjackson@alumni.caltech.edu
The REACH Team is reviewing a proposed plan for future development once we are incorporated.
Several of our team participated in the Point in Time survey of our homeless men and women in our region. This annual survey is required by HUD in order to fully assess the needs in our community.
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Meet our Guests…….
Suzie has been at REACH Home since it opened in November. You will often see her doing dishes at the sink at the Home where she greets all visitors and guests with a cheery smile. At one point she was gainfully employed at Rochester General in the food service department. But life has not always been easy for her. She grew up in Irondequoit and has nine sons and one daughter. At some point, following her husband’s death life seemed to be falling apart. She turned to alcohol and then drugs. She lived with one of her children for a while, but when their home was foreclosed she lived with them in their vehicle. They had an accident and she suffered a brain injury. They survived, pan handling and collecting cans and bottles. When she came to REACH Home in November she began a drug treatment program at Huther Doyle and has been free of both alcohol and drugs since December 1. She is determined to keep on working at this. She credits REACH with making this possible. In her words, “REACH is not a shelter it is a home and the guests are my family.”
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Phillip has also been at REACH Home since it opened in November. He grew up in Brooklyn and had a tough childhood. His father was an alcoholic who beat him up and he was the victim of gang violence. He began using heroin at 13 years of age in order to escape the depression and confusion of his world. In 1996 he moved to Rochester with his mother and brothers. But drugs continued to be his escape from the inner turmoil he felt. He has served time in prison for a violent crime, but one that was triggered by an act of violence toward his mother. Drugs as a way of coping with depression continued to plague him. He has had periods of being clean and at one point had been clean for 8 years during which time he enjoyed a relationship and fathered a daughter. But in 2013 following a dental treatment he found himself once again hooked on opioids. This led to the loss of his relationship and his daughter and he once again turned to drugs for solace and has been homeless for the past three years. At REACH he has found a supportive environment and has been clean since November with one relapse following his brother’s sudden death. He is about to move into his own apartment and looks forward to re-connecting with his daughter. He knows that he needs a supportive community to stay clean. He said, “REACH did for me what I could not do for myself. REACH helped me get my dignity back.”
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Please consider giving to REACH
We are facing a critical cash shortage while we await County re-imbursements. Checks, made out to FLACE/REACH Advocacy, may be mailed to P.O. Box10845, Rochester, NY 14610, or you may go to our web page where you can donate on line. All donations are tax deductible.
Homelessness is tied to poverty. Fifty years after Martin Luther King’s Poor People’s March on Washington there is another Poor People’s Campaign being planned. To learn more, go to https://poorpeoplescampaign.org
REACH is looking for a new Treasurer
Dave Gloss our current treasurer signed on to see us through the end of the current REACH Home in April. As we move to incorporate and expand our vision we are looking for a person who can fill this central role in our organization. If interested please contact Peter W. Peters at peterwpeters@me.com, or Andy Carey at mccollaborative1@gmail.com.
See the flier for our next fundraiser below……And now REACH has its own T-Shirts which may be purchased at this fundraiser for $10 or $12 for XXL and above.
Your copy should address 3 key questions: Who am I writing for? (Audience) Why should they care? (Benefit) What do I want them to do here? (Call-to-Action)
Create a great offer by adding words like "free" "personalized" "complimentary" or "customized." A sense of urgency often helps readers take an action, so think about inserting phrases like "for a limited time only" or "only 7 remaining!"
