Atticus Farone is a seventh grader at Old Trail School in Akron.. In this article, he discusses the work that Family Promise does to help the homeless in Summit Country and across the country and how volunteers can help the organization.
Family Promise helps tons of families in need, by helping to support them financially, giving them shelter, getting them their own houses and getting transportation. In 2024 they helped 67,000 families in need. They educate families on how to stay out of homelessness by giving them classes on budgeting, getting affordable banking, and improving credit scores. They even help them get careers so that they can make money to support themselves and their family.
The reason for this is to make sure that families stay out of homelessness once they get a home. They are extremely effective in helping families with 80 percent of them that receive shelter ending up with stable housing in the future. Their shelters make sure to keep families together instead of separating them by age or gender which makes the stuff they are going through much easier than if they were separated. In Summit County they have an apartment building for the families but used to have shelters in churches. The churches still help get meals to them in Summit County along with the Akron Food Bank and other donors. The organization spans 43 states and has been around since 1986 as the National Interfaith Hospitality Network.
It is extremely important that they help children because it is more likely for them to stay homeless in the future and not graduate high school than children that are not homeless. Children that are homeless have more trouble getting schoolwork done because they have to think about basic necessities like how they are going to get food or where they will sleep that night which Family Promise can help them with. Homeless children have less opportunities when they’re done with school because their parents can’t afford college. Every year there are around 3 million kids that are homeless in the U.S.A and you can make a difference by helping support them through Family Promise.
You can do many things to help Family Promise such as volunteering at their shelters where you can prepare the kids meals, play with the kids, help them be transported to school. You can also pick up food from the Akron food bank for their families, and bring them meals which you can sign up to do on their website but if you don’t have time to volunteer you can donate to them on their website. Anything that you do no matter how big or small it is helps people in need so be sure to do whatever you can to help Family Promise.
