Fall 2020 Program Update

Whew! It’s been a little while hasn’t it? It’s been a busy yet wonderful past few months around the FPOC office.

In August, our Annual Gala went virtual for the FIRST TIME EVER. Thanks goes out to our wonderful sponsors, our gracious donors, and supporters like you who bid on our Silent Auction items and tuned into our Live Event. When the dust settled Boots & Bling Virtual Fling raised an awesome $116,498 for our families!

Our congregational rotation unfortunately remains closed due the COVID-19 pandemic, but that has not stopped us from working tirelessly to end family homelessness in Orange County! We are currently still operating both our Emergency Shelter and Short-term Housing programs, housing our families in our two transitional housing facilities.

The stories of the families who find their way to us continue to inspire and motivate us to help as many families as we can. October brought two families with vastly different stories our way - one child lost and one child regained.

One of our families unfortunately suffered the tragic loss of their baby girl at 52 days old. Baby is survived by mom, dad, and an older brother. FPOC was there to help them during their time of grief to ensure that they had a safe place to stay. Now they are able to focus on getting a fresh start and plan to move out of state next month to be closer to their support system.

Another family that came to us in October was a single father who, due to homelessness, had been separated from his teenage daughter for over a year. Because of our program, we were able to reunite father and daughter under one roof, and now they are looking forward to getting an apartment of their own together soon.

Throughout the pandemic, Family Promise of Orange County has continued to be there for the new families who need our help, as well as for all of our graduate families who may need extra support during this health crisis.

So far this year, we have helped 43 families (194 people!) with emergency shelter, rental assistance, food, household supplies, laundry money, and gas gift cards.

We continue to support over 10 families with food and supply donations at our monthly Food & Essentials Distribution, generously made possible by a partnership with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

We were even able to give all of our kids fun Halloween buckets filled with candy and favors to make sure that they had a wonderful Halloween this year.

And despite the pandemic, we have had 11 families (43 people) graduate to permanent housing this year!

As always, we want to thank YOU for your continued support of our families. For ways that you can get involved to help end family homelessness, please see our Volunteer Opportunities or COVID-19 Donation Needs.