This year, 2018, has been a tremendously transitional one for Our Father’s Family Keeper Ministries, as we have adapted our services to better serve those in our community.
For several years, OFFKM provided free and low-cost housing to women and women with children and others who were un-housed. This year, we were moved to transition from our Transitional Housing services.
We are strengthening the supports we provide to local families and others, particularly providing increased transportation and childcare to them.
Following are just some of the highlights of our more recent service:
We recently transported a Mississippi resident, who was living in Cassopolis, to her doctor’s appointment in Kalamazoo, after she was unable to obtain assistance from local agencies.
We provide transportation to- and from school for a 4-year-old Head Start age girl, providing service from her rural home to her bus stop. We plan to do this until her mother starts driving again.
Provided care for newborn twins, while their mother took care of other family business at various agencies. This woman is also mother to 2-, 4-, 5- and 10-year-old children.
Since the end of August, we have been blessed to provide childcare to a former Transition House guest. This has proved to be not just a blessing to this family, but to us, as the Lord has given this child a joyful spirit, and she often is smiling and laughing, lifting our spirits in the process.
After years of providing low-cost housing to women and women with children and parolees/probationers, Our Father’s Family Keepers is moving on from offering transitional housing.
UPDATE: Our Father’s Family Keeper Ministries has moved on from the transitional housing services. For information on other area resources, visit https://tinyurl.com/OFFKM2018ResourcesList.
~ o ~ o ~ o ~
VANDALIA — Our Father’s Family Keeper Ministries is turning a new leaf, meeting a great need in the community, by offering low-cost, quality housing for men who are on probationary or parolee status.
Its new program is the OFFKM-P2 Phase II Transitional Housing Program.
OFFKM will be using its Transitional Housing to house future tenants who will be personally interview and agree to a set of house rules before moving into the facility.
The new tenants must be ‘working, motivated men’ referred by the Department of Corrections or the Cass County Housing Assessment and Resource Agency (HARA).
The OFFKM Transitional House most recently offered free housing to single women and women with children who were homeless or at risk of being homeless; those women subscribed to an OFFKM program to help them find or maintain employment, manage their money and establish savings to enable them to move into their own housing and gain other significant life skills.
Rent for the new housing will be $100 per week.
For more information, contact OFFKM at 269.476.1257.
~ Click here to download a copy of the OFFKM-P2 Transitional Housing Handbook. ~
Our Father’s Family Keeper Ministries provides several resources to support youth, young ladies with children who are in need of housing, transportation and connection to much-needed resources.
Following is the story of one young women whom OFFKM first came to know on a summer trip to a Bible camp and then later as a student in area schools and for whom we were later able to provide no-cost housing and support of her educational goals during a very vulnerable time in her life.
Michelle began her life on this earth living with her grandmother, as a result of her mother dying at her birth. Under her grandmother’s leadership, Michelle grew into a wonderful, mannerable and responsible young lady.
OFFKM supported a young woman who was able to secure her CNA license.
Life, however, has a way of growing a person up in an instant. The health of Michelle’s grandmother began to fail after the young woman’s first year at Southwestern Michigan College. As a result, Michelle was forced to take on the responsibility of caring for her grandmother, such as managing the daily operation of the home they’d shared Michelle’s whole life, as well as physically caring for her aging grandmother. Her grandmother eventually had to be placed in a nursing home where she could receive around-the-clock professional health care.
Unforuntately, life took another turn: Michelle’s grandmother passed, leaving the young woman with the responsibility of giving away and otherwise disposing of her grandmother’s lifelong personal effects. Additionally, immediate family members turned their backs on Michelle, leaving her with no housing and no money.
She found herself virtually alone, even as she was awaiting a final date to head off to Job Corps where she planned to pursue certification as a nursing assistant.
That’s where Our Father’s Family Keeper Ministries entered the picture in a major way. We had first met Michelle a few years earlier on a summer trip we coordinated to Cedine Bible Camp in Spring City, Tennessee.
We assisted Michelle in the disposition of grandmother’s personal items. We were also able to provide for her transportation needs to and from Job Corps. Primarily, though, we were able to provide housing for her, in the OFFKM Transitional House, giving her a room, a “home base,” if you will, for the times when she left Job Corps on breaks and when she actually left the program after graduating from it.
Michelle said the OFFKM ministry programs and support were invaluable in helping her regain solid footing during that critical time in her life.
“Actually I don’t think I’d be here (without OFFKM’s support),” Michelle said. “I’m very appreciative of what they’ve done for me. I don’t think my life would have been like this — with me having a job, being a CNA or going into nursing in the first place. I don’t think I would have been on this path, actually.”
After earning her Certificate as a Nursing Assistant from Job Corps, she returned to the OFFKM transitional house. The Mays did not charge her rent for her room in the house, but did take a stipend from her — a program component that is a saving plan that help residents save money to have for housing, furniture, vehicles and other needs when they do leave the housing program, That money was all returned to Michelle when she left: A little more than $1,000, she said.
She credited Sis. May with helping her create a resume and register on some online job sites and apply for jobs. She eventually found one, which is where she works now. Since she started working for the company in 2015, she’s earned pay increases that now see her capable of earning up to $17 for various weekend work.
Both she and the Mays count this as one of their many successes.
“They did help me so much,” she said. “I don’t know (what path I’d be on now without them). Only the Lord would know about that one.”
OFFKM is seeking a new, volunteer Life Skills Coach for our Transition House in Vandalia.
We are looking for a mature individual who has the skill and temperament to work with single women and those with families, who are homeless or at risk of becoming homelessL Someone with a heart of compassion, who is willing to share their life experiences in a meaningful, patient way.
Our Father’s Family Keeper Ministries is seeking a new, volunteer Life Skills Coach.
The candidate should:
* Help women create personal budgets;
* Show clients how to plan healthy, nutritious meals;
* Demonstrate to women how to parent their children in a loving, firm, structured manner;
* Show women how to maintain their household;
* Help women plan and manage their time each week to achieve short- term, and part of their long-term goals;
* Lead these women in developing personal short- and long-term goals, using the SMART strategy (Simple, Manageable, Attainable, Realistic and Time-focused);
* Be able to show candidates how to dress for success and dress appropriately for interviews;
* Be able to drive.
Those being considered for the position must submit to a drug and alcohol test, the cost of which will be paid for by Our Father’s Family Keeper Ministries.
