In The News

Faith Community Women’s Group Hosts Kids Party

The Women’s Group of Faith Community in Covina hosted a wonderful Kids Party on Saturday for all the children, and their families, at URM!

The gym was transformed into a fun zone, with games, music, free-throw contests, photo booths, hoola hooping, face painting and more! The kids had a blast, and didn’t want it to end. The ladies of Faith Community generously supplied everyone with pizzas for lunch, which was a great ending to a great morning of fun.

Thanks to Faith Community and everyone who made this escape from life on Skid Row possible for our kids!

Donor Appreciate Weekend Celebrates Our Generous Supporters

Over the past year, it has been a goal of Union Rescue Mission to update our Donor Wall, an area on the 1st floor honoring many of our generous donors. Thankfully, we were put in touch with a wonderful artist from Illinois, Marg Rehnberg, who designed a beautiful, colorful and inspiring image that was put onto 4″x4″ squares to create a 20’x7′ image!

This weekend, we held a “Donor Appreciate Weekend” to celebrate not only the beautiful artwork displayed for all our guests and visitors to enjoy, but the generous donors who help make our work here possible.

Visitors arrived around 10am on Saturday, at which time they were able to help place the tiles on the wall (above is what the wall looked like at the beginning!), take tours, and watch a film about Union Rescue Mission.

Volunteers serving lunch even came out to help with the wall – everyone was excited to help and amazed at how it transformed the area. The mural is located in a main hall on our ground floor, where people are constantly walking by.

We also held a Praise and Dedication ceremony on Sunday, which included testimonies, history highlights, musical performances, and an “unveiling” of the wall.

Big thanks to EVERYONE who made this honorary wall and this weekends event a success – we are very grateful. And of course, thank you to all of our supporters who help change the lives of people here on Skid Row. It is only by partnering together that we can end homelessness as we know it in LA!

Help With the 2011 Homeless Count!

Every two years, the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority (LAHSA) conducts the Greater Los Angeles Homeless Count, as part of its mission “to support, create and sustain solutions to homelessness in the City & County of Los Angeles by providing leadership, advocacy, planning and management of program funding.”

LAHSA is the lead agency in the Los Angeles Continuum of Care and coordinates and manages approximately $74 million annually in federal, state, county and city funds for programs providing shelter, housing and services to homeless persons in the City & County of Los Angeles. They provide funding, program design, outcomes assessment and technical assistance to nearly 265 homeless services programs at nearly 100 non-profit partner agencies operating in the City & County of Los Angeles.

The count is a vital part of LAHSA’s services, which in turn benefit the guests of Union Rescue Mission. If you would like to help with the Count, please go to http://theycountwillyou.org . You can sign up with the URM Team by following these easy steps:

  1. Click “Volunteer Now” at the top of the page. This will take you to the Volunteer page.
  2. In the center of the page there will be a box that says “Sign Up to Volunteer” – input your email address. That will take you to the Registration page.
  3. On the right hand side of the page input your information – in the box marked Team Name input “I will – URM”.

The Winter Shelters

As you may know, this winter, thousands of people in LA County will be forced to find shelter in garages, warehouses, cars, parks and even city streets. Cold temperatures and rain make sleeping outside even more dangerous, causing such health problems as the flu, bronchitis, pneumonia, hypothermia, and sometimes, even death. That’s why our subsidiary, EIMAGO, Inc, partners with the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority to open four Winter Shelters each year in Downtown LA, Culver City, West LA, and Glendale.

To learn more about how these Winter Shelters work, why they matter, and how you can get involved, please check out our latest Winter Shelter section on our website,urm.org/wintershelter. Thank you so much for caring about all the people experiencing homelessness in LA, especially during these winter months. Together, let’s end homelessness as we know it in Los Angeles!

Blessings,

Rev Andy Bales, CEO

Freebirds Grand Opening Benefits URM

FREEBIRDS, a burrito restaurant that originated in Santa Barbara back in 1987, held their Grand Opening near USC today. The popular chain has decided to open up 16 new locations in California this year.

Keeping in line with their mission, “Feed Your Belly, Feed Your Soul”, they benefit charities at their Grand Opening Events. Yesterday, proceeds went to the Art of Elysium, and today donations were given to us to help people experiencing homelessness. The first 250 guest to arrive were able to receive a free burrito in honor of their $5 donation.

We are so thankful for the generosity of FREEBIRDS, and to everyone who came out to the event to day to support our work here at Union Rescue Mission!

Winter Shelters Staying Open Through Rain!

We are very excited to announce that the Winter Shelters will now be open 24/7 during this inclement weather period! Thanks to LAHSA for helping to make this possible for year round shelters, including the armories where our Winter Shelters are located.

Over the weekend, we were very concerned for all our Winter Shelter guests who had to leave the shelters as early as 5:30am and be out in the rain all day before returning to eat and sleep at night. Find out more about the situation by watching this news clip.

19th Annual Christmas Store a Success

Last week, hundreds of families came to Union Rescue Mission to take part in our 19th Annual Christmas Store!

On Thursday and Friday, parents who otherwise might not be able to buy gifts for their children were invited to come shop with us. We transformed our Chapel into a Christmas Store, filled with gifts, personal shoppers, and present-wrappers!

While moms and dads shopped for their kids, the children enjoyed our Kids Zone. They were able to take a picture with Santa, enjoy popcorn and cotton candy, and play at our crafts table after shopping in their special Kids Christmas Store for their parents!

 

 Rev. Andy Bales said “It’s our great joy to provide an opportunity for a unique shopping experience to 1000 to 1200 families that might otherwise miss out on the joy of personally giving gifts to their children at Christmas.”

 

 

Each year URM’s Annual Christmas Store is made possible through the generosity of  private donors, partnering corporations and companies like Disney, SUBWAY Restaurants, Wells Fargo Women’s Network, Eaton Aerospace, Beverly Hills YPO, Toyota and many others. Thanks to everyone for making this great event possible!

You can see more photos from this event by checking out our Flickr!

 

Stories from Skid Row: Febe

It is our goal to move every precious mother and child off the streets of Skid Row and to the safety and serenity of Hope Gardens Family Center, where they can really get back on their feet.

Febe, a single mom of two, came to Union Rescue Mission when she had to leave her home due to family issues. She is one of the many moms that we have helped move to Hope Gardens, and she definitely won’t be the last. It won’t be easy. But we know with help from friends like you, we can make this dream a reality.

Please take a moment to watch this video of Febe getting a fresh start on life and moving into Hope Gardens. And thank you for your continued support  – we couldn’t do this without you.

Blessings,

We’ve Come Too Far To Stop Now

As 2010 comes to an end, I want to take a moment to express my deep gratitude for your faithful support and share a few things that are on my heart.

In the next 30 days Union Rescue Mission is facing both a tremendous opportunity, and an overwhelming challenge.  Our Winter Shelters opened in Glendale, Culver City and West LA in addition to downtown on December 1st and we are anticipating another record number of families needing assistance due to the economy and bitter cold weather. 

We are making final preparations for our Annual Christmas Store and special Christmas Eve and Christmas Day celebrations.  As always, we hope to share God’s love with thousands of men, women and children who will turn to us for help this year. 

And thanks to a capital gift from the County Homeless and Housing Prevention Fund, we completed renovations on the Sycamore Building at Hope Gardens Family Center and are planning to move 12-14 more families—moms with children—directly from URM’s downtown location surrounded by the mean streets of Skid Row, to the peace, safety and beauty of Hope Gardens Family Center.  We also just received word that the Ahmanson Foundation has stepped up to provide the much needed funds to completely renovate Concord, our final building at Hope Gardens, and we expect to move another 12 to 14 moms and precious children, from URM to Hope Gardens in March. 

This combined with plans to open a Los Angeles Homeless Authority funded project for nine families at 83rd and Broadway, and a move of our year round shelter for 8 families to a site just off of West Adams, means that we are on the brink of success in achieving a long awaited hope and plan to move every child and mom away from the mean streets of Skid Row and out to a much more child friendly environment! 

This has been the plan of the Board of Directors and URM staff all along.  And frankly, it is one of 3 legacies that I had in my heart when I came through the door of URM nearly 6 years ago. 

We are so grateful to have the capital resources to complete the projects to accomplish this goal, but here comes the overwhelming challenge…giving for the year is down and we have a $750,000 gap in the operating funds needed to support the families we are planning to move from Skid Row.  We hoped to fill this gap with a continued County subsidy of $62,500 per month to Hope Gardens, believing that they would support our carrying out of their mandate to get every child off of Skid Row and out of Union Rescue Mission. 

Despite requests from faithful friends, staff members and I, to date the County Board of Supervisors has not come through with this vital funding.

Your amazing heart and faith is our final hope of accomplishing this tremendous history making goal before the end of this year. 

If you can respond in yet another unprecedented way, and we can raise an additional, unexpected $750,000 by December 31st of this year, we can move ahead with plans to get every single mom and child off of Skid Row and to a beautiful place of safety and hope and a ladder out of homelessness and poverty.

On behalf of our entire team I wish you a very Merry Christmas and a blessed New Year.

Sincerely,

 

P.s. While I have assured the County that if they do not respond and we fall short in funding, it will be their decision that leaves children on Skid Row, it is my heartfelt prayer that year-end giving from our faithful donors will fill the gap and allow us to move forward with this vital plan.

Stories from Skid Row: The Nativity

Each night, an average of 145 kids call Union Rescue Mission and Hope Gardens Family Center home. And thanks to help from friends like you, we have rescued over 1,800 precious children from living on the streets of Skid Row in the last 2 years. Kiera is one of these adorable children. We hope you will take a moment to watch her tell the Christmas Story in her own words!

No one deserves to suffer the devastation of homelessness, especially during the holidays. Thank you for your continued support in helping us serve each and every person who comes to our doors.