Tuesday, October 19, 2010

2nd Annual Tina DeLellis Luncheon to Honor Past and Present Community Service

Somerville, Mass. (October 14, 2010) – The Somerville Homeless Coalition is hosting the 2nd Annual Tina DeLellis Luncheon on October 29 from 11:30 a.m. – 1:30 p.m., at The Highland Kitchen. The luncheon is held in memory of Tina DeLellis, a founder of the popular Somerville restaurant and music venue, Johnny D’s. The luncheon recognizes an individual who has made a significant contribution in helping improve the quality of life for individuals in Somerville. DeLellis, who passed away in 2008, is survived by her daughter, Carla, who now manages Johnny D’s and continues the community involvement the business has supported for many years.

This year's honoree is Nancy Aylward of Somerville mayor Jospeh Curtatone’s office. Requirements for the Tina DeLellis Distinguished Service Award are that the individual “continue Tina’s spirit and values of straight-shooting, honesty and fairness,” said Mark Alston-Follansbee, Executive Director of the Somerville Homeless Coalition. Attendees will enjoy a delicious lunch from The Highland Kitchen while sharing in Tina’s memory and appreciating Nancy’s accomplishments. All proceeds will benefit the non-profit organization.

To purchase tickets, visit the SHC website at www.shcinc.org or call Mark Alston-Follansbee at (617) 623-6111. Please be aware that seating is limited.

The Somerville Homeless Coalition is a non-profit organization committed to ending homelessness and near-homelessness in the Somerville and Greater Boston areas.

The SHC currently provides supportive services, resources and housing to well over 600 men, women and children. For more information on the Somerville Homeless Coalition, please visit www.shcinc.org or call 617-623-6111. “Support, Housing, Community.”

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Somerville Homeless Coalition Gets 15th Annual 5K Road Race Up and Running

Somerville, Mass. (September 27, 2010) – Lace up those sneakers and get ready to run. The Somerville Homeless Coalition is holding their 15th Annual 5K Road Race October 2nd, starting in Davis Square. After the race, there will be a brunch provided by local restaurants, awards for top finishers in each category and top overall male and female runners, free t-shirts for the first 400 registrants and music provided by the Kirsten & Dave Acoustic Band. Runners, walkers, and wheelchair participants are invited to go the distance in support of the non-profit organization. All proceeds will benefit the SHC and the programs and services it provides to the homeless and near-homeless in Somerville and the Greater Boston area.

Check-in and day of registration can be done the day of the event between 7 a.m. – 8:30 a.m or online at Active.com, until September 30th. The race starts at 9 a.m. sharp; rain or shine. Cost is $20 per runner. The course, an urban trail with varied terrain, will start and end in Davis Square. In 2009, the race had over 1,000 runners, which is expected to be exceeded this year.

The SHC has also invited a team of 15 homeless athletes to run in the 5K from the new Boston chapter of Back on My Feet, another local non-profit organization which promotes the self-sufficiency of homeless populations by engaging them in running as a means to build confidence, strength and self-esteem.

The organization creates running teams of those experiencing homelessness and living in transitional housing, with BOMF volunteers. “Residential members” and “non-residential members” as they are called, run together three times a week and in monthly competitive races. If members maintain 90 percent attendance at those early morning runs, they are welcomed into a comprehensive program that offers connections to job training, employment and housing. The SHC’s 5K Road Race has been chosen by the BOMF organization as their official October month race.

“The community support we receive each year for our annual Road Race is incredible,” said Mark Alston-Follansbee, Executive Director of the SHC. “We have runners from all over, an incredible brunch donated from our wonderful Davis Square restaurants, and sponsors who care about our work and want to help. It’s very encouraging to see so many people band together to raise funds for the homeless and near-homeless, and we are very grateful.”

To learn more about the Somerville Homeless Coalition or to register for the event, visit www.shcinc.org or call Jen Merrill at 617-623-6111.

The Somerville Homeless Coalition is a non-profit organization committed to ending homelessness and near-homelessness in the Somerville and Greater Boston areas. The SHC currently provides supportive services, resources and housing to over 600 men, women and children. For more information on the Somerville Homeless Coalition, please visit www.shcinc.org or call 617-623-6111.

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Thursday, September 2, 2010

Swing into Action for the 8th Annual Somerville Homeless Coalition Golf Tournament

Somerville, Mass. (August 30, 2010) – Get those golf clubs out of the closet and join the Somerville Homeless Coalition for their 8th Annual Golf Tournament, sponsored by The Queally Waxman Group. This year’s tournament will be held at the Wayland Country Club in Wayland, Mass, September 10th. Golfers can check-in the day of the event at 12:30 p.m., followed by a barbeque-style lunch. Shotgun start will be at 1:30 p.m. The event will feature an 18-hole scramble, hole prizes, dinner reception, as well as a “Best of Day” awards ceremony. All proceeds will benefit the non-profit organization and the programs and services it provides to the homeless and near-homeless in Somerville and the Greater Boston area.

The cost to participate is $125 per person or $500 for a four-person team. Participants can sign-up as an individual, or in two, three or four person groups. Event sponsorships are also available for businesses, starting at $150. A sponsorship guarantees the participating organization visibility to up to 144 golfers, exposure to visitors on the official SHC website, and mention in the newsletter and annual report. All sponsorships are eligible for a tax-deduction.

“The annual golf tournament is one of the ways we raise the necessary funds to support our work,” said Mark Alston-Follansbee, Executive Director of the SHC. “We are so grateful for all the community support we receive. Working together we do make a difference in the lives of families and individuals we serve.”

To register for the event or purchase a sponsorship, visit the SHC website at www.shcinc.org or call Jen Merrill at (617) 623-6111.

The Somerville Homeless Coalition is a non-profit organization committed to ending homelessness and near-homelessness in the Somerville and Greater Boston areas. The SHC currently provides supportive services, resources and housing to well over 600 men, women and children. For more information on the Somerville Homeless Coalition, please visit www.shcinc.org or call 617-623-6111.
“Support, Housing, Community.”

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Sunday, April 18, 2010

Trying to Put Ourselves Out of Business Since 1985, The Somerville Homeless Coalition Honors 25 Years of Service to the Community

The Somerville Homeless Coalition will hold our annual dinner April 24th at the Center for the Arts at the Armory in Somerville beginning at 6:00 pm. The dinner will recognize three people important to the work of the Coalition, have a Redbones dinner, a silent auction, and dancing to The Four Piece Suit.

Karen LaFrazia, Executive Director of St. Francis House in Boston, was a founding board member and served as President of the SHC. She is being recognized for the great work she does now and for her work with the Coalition’s beginnings in 1985. Evelyn (Dibbie) Gilmore has been a member of the First Congregational Church of Somerville for 75 years and has just retired from her volunteer position at Project SOUP’s Monday night meal at the church after 23 years. She is being honored for being such a gracious host – and hardly ever missing a Monday – all those years. Jean Donovan is the manager of our Family Shelter and has been with us for almost 10 years. She is receiving the first Theresa Elliott Award, named for one of our staff who helped start the Coalition’s permanent housing program and who died too young last year.

“We are not calling this evening a celebration because we cannot celebrate the continuing needs of the homeless and hungry – but it is important to recognize the work the Coalition has done to address hunger and homelessness in our community and to thank all of our supporters who make this work possible,” said Board President Walker Martin.

Even though the Somerville Homeless Coalition is now 25 years old, the name is a bit of a misnomer. We are not just in Somerville anymore: our heart and soul are there, but our tasks and territory have expanded. Next, much of our work is not with homeless people, but with formerly homeless people who we now support in permanent housing. Finally, SHC was started by a group of concerned citizens, but were never a coalition.

The Somerville Homeless Coalition opened the first shelter in Somerville for homeless adults in 1985, and two years later opened a facility for families. Project SOUP, begun in 1969 to feed people in need of a meal, joined in 1996. In 1997, we were awarded our first federal grant to provide case management for anyone homeless in Somerville. Finally, over the past nine years, we have created six permanent housing programs and a prevention program to keep people housed.

“But 25 years is too long to have an emergency response to a housing crisis – and the whole emergency shelter system makes no sense,” said Mark Alston-Follansbee, executive director. “It is not compassionate or fiscally responsible. The average cost to shelter a family for one year in Massachusetts is $36,000. We can take the same family and put them in one of our apartments – with all of the supportive services they need – for $15,000. But even that is not the best we do. With grants from the City of Somerville and from the United Way, last year we prevented 56 families from becoming homeless at an average cost of under $1,100.”

Those are enormous savings, but the Homeless Coalition’s prevention funds in 2008 lasted 11 months and unfortunately only lasted four months last year. The need, compounded by this terrible recession, has never been greater. The Somerville Homeless Coalition has the skills and the experience to prevent people from becoming homeless or to get them back into housing as quickly as possible. Unfortunately, we lack enough resources to meet the need. The SHC needs everyone’s help to continue to feed the hungry, to care for the homeless, and prevent people from losing their homes. The people coming in the door asking for help will be grateful.

If you would like to attend the dinner on the 24th or learn more about the Coalition, please call 617-623-6111 or go to www.shcinc.org. Thank you, Mark Alston-Follansbee

Friday, March 19, 2010

"Empty Shoes" and "Unto the East": Poetry Reading, Author Chat, and Fundraiser

Friday, March 26, 2010 08:00 PM
Calvary Methodist Church, 300 Massachusetts Ave., Arlington, MA,

Patrick T. Randolph, editor of "Empty Shoes" and Mary ElizaBeth Peters, author of "Unto the East," will host a shared reading and author discussion of their poetry works at Calvary Methodist Church in Arlington. "Empty Shoes" is a collaborative work featuring 158 poems about hunger and homelessness from 80 poets, and "Unto the East" is a solo poetry project chronicling the experience of the author, currently awaiting a double lung transplant. The reading is free, and proceeds from the sale of "Empty Shoes" will benefit the Somerville Homeless Coalition. For more information please email patientpress@gmail.com

Thursday, December 10, 2009

Using the T to Spread the Word


the Globe did a story on our subway ads; let me know what you think about them:

By Danielle Dreilinger, Globe Correspondent

As the festive season races forward, the Somerville Homeless Coalition is searching for greenbacks on a red-bedecked source: the T.

This month, the coalition launched its first-ever subway fund-raising outreach campaign on 60 Red Line cars. "We wanted to think about ways that we could try to connect with newer Somerville residents," said director Mark Alston-Follansbee, as well as young people.

Though the state reinstated funding for homeless shelters on Dec. 4, the coalition still needs to raise about $600,000 of its $3 million budget each year and "it gets harder and harder," Alston-Follansbee said.

Calls to their hot line have tripled since last December, and 30 new families a month are coming to the food pantry. The coalition has shelters for 16 adults and five families, "and both of them are always filled," Alston-Follansbee said.

He hopes the subway campaign would at the very least recoup its roughly $1,300 investment. In particular, the coalition needs more money for prevention. It costs $36,000 a year to house a family in a shelter, Alston-Follansbee said, but only $500 to $1,000 to keep that family from losing its home in the first place.

As the subway ads say, "If you think this year is tough for you, imagine what it's like for them."

Wednesday, August 26, 2009

Legacy Gift from Grace Baptist Church

Twenty years ago, the members of Grace Baptist Church and the Somerville Homeless Coalition embarked on a joint mission to help homeless families.  When the church closed its doors in 2005, the congregation decided to use the sale of the church building to continue their commitment to the homeless. This past April, after five years of legal hurdles, the members of Grace Baptist Church presented SHC with a legacy gift to continue the work they have enthusiastically supported for over 20 years.

The partnership between SHC and Grace Baptist Church began in 1987. “We had extra space on the second floor of the church,” said Florence Lewis, a long-time member of the Grace Baptist congregation. “We were very enthusiastic about offering this space to SHC to use as a shelter. They came in and renovated the space, and it turned into a very good partnership.”

Though the five-room family shelter has been in high demand since 1987, the congregation of Grace Baptist Church began to dwindle. In 2005, the church made the difficult decision to close its doors for good. “It was hard,” Lewis said, “but we knew that with the sale of the church, we wanted to support the work of SHC moving forward.”

At SHC’s April event, Under the Roof, members of Grace Baptist Church presented SHC Executive Director Mark Alston-Follansbee with their last donation from the sale of the church. "This generous gift will continue Grace Baptist Church’s legacy in Somerville while insuring our shelter is able to meet its mission," Alston-Follansbee said.

The timing of the Grace Baptist gift cannot go unnoticed.  “When we embarked on this partnership, we never imagined the family shelter would still be needed more than ever 20 years later,” said Lewis. “But over the years, we know that through our space and support, we were able to help quite a number of families, and that’s something we’re glad about.”

SHC’s family shelter will remain in the church at Cross Street, but with a new landlord: Seventh Day Adventist Church.  The gift from Grace Baptist Church will be used to supplement the cost of running the shelter, so it may continue to be open to families in crisis and in need of housing.

[Originally published in Somerville Homeless Coalition's Summer 2009 newsletter.]