Providing Help....Creating Hope! 2009 was a most challenging year. The poor state of the economy caused ripple effects in families throughout our service area. Ohio continued to be one of the hardest states hit by foreclosures and layoffs as over 12,000 jobs have simply went away over the past 5 years. This has left people scrambling for help, many of whom never had to ask for it before. As a result a good number of our long time supporters have become dependant clients. Our 58,000 square foot facility at 701 East Columbia Street continued to be a center of support for not only the clients we serve, but for the 105 soup kitchens, shelters, and pantries that depend on us to find enough food to fill the demand. Through a Feeding America grant we added a Product Expansion Specialist to staff in mid year whose sole responsibility is finding and expanding the sources of products for the food bank. In addition to working with manufacturers, she also has developed and grown the retail store pick-up program, where we currently pick up donations from all Walmart and Kroger stores three times a week in all three counties. The biggest benefit to this program was acquiring center of the plate meat items we were so lacking in previous years. The timely completion of our 4,000 square foot cooler/freezer coupled with our existing fleet of refrigerated trucks, has provided the necessary components to secure the process in the food chain, keeping products frozen and refrigerated from donation all the way to the end user. After the events of the past few years, including wind storms and flooding, we also have begun conversations with community leaders that would allow the Food Bank to be a focal point for support and relief in the event of another area disaster, trying to create a plan now rather than after the fact for future needs. Due to the increased conflicts and stressors, our counseling program has also seen a growth in demand. Our professional counselors offer assistance to provide needed coping skills, in most cases at little or no cost to the client. We continued individual, family, and group therapy for children and adults to help them withstand the economic pressures that normally tear families apart. Our full serve pantries, offered Monday through Friday in all three counties, along with Emergency Assistance for rent and utilities, have been a beacon of hope for families struggling to stay together, fed, and in their home. The Benefit Bank has continued to provide a resource to obtain additional benefits when most clients are unaware of eligibility. We have also assisted with Federal and State tax e-filing at no cost, speeding up the refund process and keeping the funds in the hands of those that need it most. However, in this current economy, it has become extremely difficult in these challenging times to find financial support for the services provided. As a non-profit entity, we rely strongly on the dedicated commitment received from individuals; families; foundations; State, Federal and local government; corporate and charitable institutions, to allow Catholic Charities to faithfully fulfill our mission every day. Unfortunately, in 2009 we have seen the end or reduction of several government and foundation sources of support, such as the Work Experience Program, as the economic pressures begin to effect them as well. This has forced us to be creative in our efforts to find new supporters through more event driven activities and mail requests. Although we only had a staff of 24 over the three counties, we too have been forced to make layoffs and program reductions for 2010 as support decreased. As we wait out the economic recovery, Catholic Charities and the Second Harvest Food Bank continue to be the safety net for people in need in our community. Facts show that one in eight people are suffering from food insecurity and one in four children go to bed hungry every night.
Hunger is not always a choice, but giving to help is! We thank
those again for their continued support and ask others considering a
donation to Catholic Charities and the Second Harvest Food Bank to
please be a part of the solution. Your neighbors, friends,
co-workers, and family members who suffer silently would be indebted to
you as well.
Keith Williamson
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Emergency Assistance: Emergency Assistance ranging in service areas from our three county operated food pantries, to utility bills and rent payments. Annually, 18,556 clients were served through our pantries (a 75% increase over last two years!) and 10,609 were the recipients of assistance. Funding to support our emergency assistance activities come primarily from Helping Hands (United Way Logan County only) Housing Trust Fund (State of Ohio - Clark County only) and the Emergency Food and Shelter Program (Federal all three counties) funding. Second Harvest Food Bank: The food bank operates in our service area of Clark, Champaign and Logan Counties. We have 105 active member affiliate agencies comprised of food pantries, soup kitchens, and pantries that we provide regular product and meals to. Annually, the food bank received and distributed 3,330,348 pounds of food and product (valued at 1.21/lb financially) to local agencies and other food banks in our Ohio cluster. Locally, over our three county area, 337,111 adults and children were served an equivalent of 3,033,093 meals. We continued postponement of potential building renovation on our 58,000 square foot facility as we used all available funds to build the much needed cooler and freezer. We terminated our long distance trucking efforts as we reconnected and clustered with other Ohio food banks to more efficiently move and receive food product. Commodity Supplemental Food Program (CSFP): Every month income eligible elderly residents of our three county service area receive a 40 pound box of food through the USDA Commodity Supplemental Food Program. For the year, we distributed 14,587 boxes to an average 1,376 individuals participating in the program. Every month groups of individuals volunteer to pack the CSFP boxes. If your church, company, service organization, school or other organizations are interested in volunteering please contact our main office (monthly volunteer group packing pictured below).
Work Experience Program (WEP): Contracted annually with the Clark County Department of Job and Family Services to manage a portion of the Work Experience Program. the WEP program worked with the county to place clients in community work sites, monitor their efforts and provide other services as may be needed to receive their benefits and food stamps. At the completion of the last contract year, the WEP program had 3,617 participants, 1,048 of which were new participants (on a contracted of 650, a 61% increase over expectations), working at an average of 58 non-profit work sites, contributing 65,064 hours of labor in exchange for their food stamp benefits. The contract for this program was unfortunately discontinued due to forced County budget cuts at the end of 2009 and will no longer be offered through Catholic Charities in 2010, leaving a huge vacancy in the volunteer work force at all of the participating agencies and a lack of accountability to those receiving benefits. Mental Health Counseling: Our agency counselors provide diagnostic, individual, and group therapy to adults, children, seniors and families. We continue to experience increases in demand under the current economic situation. Rising unemployment and a challenging local economy contribute to this situation. Our counselors are trained to deal with a wide array of mental health issues. Some of the most common issues that we see are anger management, relationship issues and mood disorders. These have been growing need areas that our counselors are asked to meet. Annually, we provided counseling to 182 clients (132 of these NEW). In 2009 we also expanded our services to include referred MRDD clients which we saw both in-house and on location for convenience. Additionally, we now offer services in our Urbana office and are receiving referrals from that community as well. Our PASSPORT services to seniors in Clark County also saw substantial growth serving 17 clients (15 of these NEW). | |
