Winter Program Update

Happy New Year!

While 2020 brought us new challenges that we never could have anticipated, and we are glad to move on to a new year, we are also so thankful for a year in which we were able to help more families than we ever have before.

For Thanksgiving, we were able to partner with HomeAid Orange County and receive Food Boxes collected and assembled from their Thanksgiving Meal Drive. Each of our families received a wonderful box filled with all the Thanksgiving staples, along with a gift card to purchase a turkey or ham. Thank you to all who donated food to the drive, to all the volunteers who helped make it possible, and to HomeAid Orange County!

The Holiday Season in 2020 was a busy one for Family Promise of Orange County. Our annual Adopt-a-Family Program provided gifts and good cheer to 24 families (90 people!) Our Board of Directors helped to provide gift wrapping donations, and staff and volunteers played Santa to safely deliver the gifts to our families. The kindness and generosity of our adopters helped ensure that 57 kids, along with their parents, had a wonderful Christmas morning.

Our families were also able to enjoy donations of Christmas trees with all the trimmings, and our kids were excited to received stockings stuffed with fun surprises, which were provided by our Eagle Scout, Taleah, and other donors. One family came to us for assistance on December 21st, and we were able to ensure they had a safe place to stay for Christmas, complete with gifts under a Christmas tree.

We currently have four families in our two short-term transitional houses, and they were overjoyed to have the houses decorated for the holidays – outside lights and decorations were donated and made for a festive holiday. Lennar Homes graciously donated a Christmas tree for one of our houses, and JCC Cares volunteers provided a meal for our families on Christmas Day.

We also received an overwhelming amount of in-kind donations in the month of December – household items, gas and grocery gift cards, handwritten cards, holiday treats, and an amazing number of TOYS! In all, our donors gave over $14,000 worth of goods for our families!

We hope everyone enjoyed our weekly newsletters during the month of December – highlighting Hanukkah, Christmas, and Kwanzaa, as well as our little holiday song “surprise” from FPOC staff. We wanted to thank our generous donors for their year-end giving to our program – which totaled over $37,000 in donations!

As we turn the page to 2021, we remain optimistic that we will eventually be able to reopen our congregational rotation later this year, as the vaccine becomes more widely available. In the meanwhile, we continue to work tirelessly to end family homelessness in Orange County by offering shelter in our short-term transitional houses and supportive services to our families, including rental assistance, groceries, household supplies, laundry money, and gas gift cards.

We continue to operate our monthly Grocery & Supply Distribution to an average of 15 families, helping to supplement family expenses with fresh and healthy food so that families can focus on keeping their housing. The Helpful Honda folks even stopped by again on January 5th to supply the manpower for this massive undertaking.

THANK YOU to all our supporters, volunteers, and donors for helping to make 2020 a little brighter for our families! We are truly blessed to have such wonderful community support for our program and unified commitment to ending family homelessness in Orange County!

For ways that you can help support Family Promise of Orange County in 2021, please see our COVID-19 Donation Needs or our Volunteer Opportunities.

Thank YOU for your support this year!

Well, 2020 was like no other year. The COVID-19 pandemic led to so much loss. Loss of family members, loss of dear friends, loss of jobs and the loss of personal connection. Our world will forever be changed! With a sad and heavy heart, I want to extend my thoughts and prayers to everyone who has been affected by this terrible virus. I am sorry for your loss!

Concurrently, my heart is also full of gratitude to all our supporters. YOU gave Family Promise of Orange County the means to feed, shelter and support more families than we ever have before. Because you were there for us, we were able to be there for dozens of families, hundreds of children, who would have lost their homes. Together, we have been able to protect our County’s most vulnerable people. We have succeeded in helping families survive what appeared to be impossible circumstances.

Thank you to everyone who gave their time, treasures and talents to Family Promise of Orange County. I want to personally thank our 2020 Board of Directors: Bernd, Jodi, Ryan, Sue, Melody, Tom, Dan, Don, Linda, Barb, Marjorie, and Morgan. Your leadership and tireless support have brought our organization through difficult times. Thank you to our Advisory Board, our Capital Campaign Chair, Carl, and the committee for your vision for our House of Ruth project. Thank you to everyone at HomeAid and building partners, your impact on families will never end.

Thank you to our amazing congregations who supplied thousands of dollars in gift cards for our families to buy groceries and gas. Thank you to our five fall semester interns for the countless hours you worked to help members of our community find shelter and services. Thank you to First Presbyterian Church Anaheim for giving us a home to operate our programs from.

Thank you to the hundreds of volunteers who bagged food and supplies for our families. Thank you to our partner organizations, including our new friends at The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, who have provided desperately needed food and supplies for our families.

Thank you to each of you! Your help, whatever it was, enabled our small team (four of us in total) to rise to the overwhelming challenge of supporting homeless and at-risk families during a pandemic.

Thank you to my incredible Mom, Sandee Rogers, who volunteers several days a week in our office. She makes sure our donors are thanked and that our bills are paid. I love her and appreciate her more than words can express.

Thank you to Malia Cary, our phenomenally talented Community Impact Manager, who started a few weeks before the pandemic hit. In circumstances that can only be described as unbelievable, Malia coordinated our first-ever Virtual Gala, which was fabulous and incredibly successful. Malia has also provided direction and support to hundreds of volunteers.

I would like to thank Bill Richardson, our Shower Trailer Technician and general “do anything and everything” guy, for stepping up to meet the ever-changing needs of our organization. For his work since the inception of FPOC, Bill and his lovely wife Susan were designated our Volunteers of the Year!

Last, but most definitely not least, I would like to thank Alexis Young, our only Case Manager, who adapted to the stay-home virtual environment with grace and poise. When the shutdown happened in March, Alexis lost the support of 10 case management interns and three volunteers. I am not sure how she did it, but she maintained the case management services and support that our families needed. Because of Alexis’s ingenuity and work ethic, and of course the generosity of every donor, no graduate family has lost their home this year!

Congratulations to all – WE DID IT - we got through 2020!

On behalf of every person and child Family Promise of Orange County helped this year, I want to thank you for your love, care, compassion and commitment. I wish you and your loved ones health and happiness for 2021.

Happy New Year!

God Bless,

Cyndee Albertson

Executive Director

Holiday 2020 with FPOC

The holidays are here!

Bookmark this page for all the ways in which you will be able to help our families during the upcoming holiday season.

#GivingTuesday

December 1st marks the beginning of the holiday giving season, and Family Promise of Orange County will be participating in this National Day of Giving.

Adopt-a-Family

Our Adopt-a-Family matching is currently underway. If you'd like to adopt a child or an entire family for this holiday season, please contact Malia Cary at 714-749-0366 or malia@familypromiseoc.org.

Holiday Food Distribution

We will be distributing groceries and household essentials to our families on Tuesday, December 8th from 9:00am until 3:00pm. We are always in need of volunteers to help with this large undertaking! Please see our Volunteer Opportunities page for more information.

Holiday Greetings

Be sure to sign up for our online newsletter to receive updates and special surprises throughout the entire month of December!

Holiday Donation Drive

Check out our most needed items here:

FPOC Holiday Donation Drive.pdf

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