Millage Recipient Profile - Family Promise
Family Promise of Grand Rapids is part of the Ready by Five Early Childhood Millage outreach and navigation network.
Family Promise of Grand Rapids provides emergency shelter and basic needs to families with children experiencing homelessness. The organization helps families find a place to call home and walk along-side families after they move home to help with housing stabilization.
Family Promise of Grand Rapids has served families in Grand Rapids for more than 20 years. In that time, it has served thousands of families, including more than 4,000 children.
Here’s just one of the stories about a family the organization provided outreach and navigation services to this year. Vanessa and her two-year-old son, Nathan, were in an emergency shelter. After learning that her family would qualify for a Family Promise Partners in Housing home, Vanessa jumped at the chance and is now on her way to becoming a homeowner! As Vanessa moved home, she was connected to the Family Promise in-home case management team. Vanessa identified that she had concerns about Nathan’s ability to communicate. The case manager connected this family to a community resource for in-home speech therapy and now Nathan is thriving. He is headed to preschool this fall and has a bright future ahead. Thanks to the trusted relationship with her case manager, Vanessa was able to ask for help and is set up for success.
Most children served by Family Promise is six years old and younger, so the organization thrilled to partner with Ready by Five to connect children to community resources to ensure long-term success.
"We are excited to further our work in connecting the children we serve to important community resources,” said Cheryl Schuch, Executive Director of Family Promise of Grand Rapids. “We know that families in emergency shelter are the least likely to be connected to community resources. This investment by Kent County and Ready by Five will have a huge long-term impact on the children we work with. Thank to everyone who made this happen!”
Family Promise of Grand Rapids’ work will fill in the gaps of some of the hardest families to reach in Kent County. While working to provide emergency shelter and viable solutions for families, the trust that is built will help to connect families to other necessary resources that are available in Kent County. During the next two years, Family Promise of Grand Rapids will receive $50,000 to increase its ability to reach out to families.
