BREAKING BREAD. MAKING FRIENDS. BUILDING BRIDGES.
Now that we are “hopefully” turning the corner on COVID-19, FTHP is looking at how and when we can safely return to the street with our hot breakfast. There will be more about that to come in the next few weeks. In the meantime, we wanted to bring everyone up to speed on some exciting news about what’s been going on with FTHP for the past year or so.
As you probably know, even when we couldn’t safely do our regular hot breakfast at Edgewood, we’ve been busy every week delivering meals in the downtown area.
During COVID we also decided to look at how we could create a genuine atmosphere of friendship and trust with those who come to us for breakfast at Edgewood. These are the folks you will hear us refer to from now on as “our guests.”
Our work during COVID has included looking at creating more effective partnerships with our guests, sponsors, volunteers, and the essential service providers — organizations that have the resources to assist our guests when they’re ready to make changes in their lives. To do this we undertook a yearlong program with the Lupton Foundation dba Focused Community Strategies. This involved in-depth examinations of what we do, why we do it, and how we do it.
One thing we learned working with FCS is that we need to be more relational and less transactional with those who come to us for breakfast. As a follow up we are exploring how we can “share a meal” and not just hand a guest a plate of food in the serving line.
We also learned that organizationally we do a pretty good job with our breakfast thanks to you, our sponsors and volunteers. This isn’t going to change. We’re still all about breakfast. After all, it all begins with breakfast!
We want what we do to lead to a more hopeful situation for everyone involved. This includes more opportunities for us, and you, to serve.
Something else we did was to change our name from Feeding the Homeless Project, Inc., to FTHP, Inc. We did this because we don’t want to artificially limit anyone’s perception of what we do to feeding. We want to develop relationships with all our partners so we can be more and maybe do more. Another reason was because using the word “homeless” can be interpreted to artificially and unfairly define our guests when many aren’t homeless and others don’t like being called homeless.
So you ask what does FTHP stand for now? Fair question. Now that we’re officially FTHP, Inc., we’re taking steps to do business as “For the Hope Partnership”. This is because we’re all about Breaking Bread, Making Friends, and Building Bridges.
We at FTHP are really excited about the future and the possibilities it holds for everyone involved with what we do and we hope you’ll be there with us as in the past, making hope possible for us all. Stay tuned. We’ll be back in touch about all of this! But rest assured we’re still about breakfast! Thanks!
Namaste
Bill Sutton Heather Steiner
Chairperson Vice Chairperson
Board of Directors
John DeCouto Bill Mueller Clay Allen Jack Chapman
Senior Advisor Senior Advisor
Karin Cornell Tim Farley David Heaton Dan Kaufman
David Litz Adam MacDaniel Lee Ann Saxton Doug Sinclair
Susan Sinclair
Sponsor/Volunteer Coordinator
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