Elgin Homeless Bring Hope for Haiti brunch fundraiser this Sunday

This Sunday, the guests of PADS of Elgin will be hosting a brunch, “Eat Your Heart Out: Elgin Homeless Bring Hope for Haiti brunch fundraiser” from 11AM-2PM at the Douglas L. Hoeft Resource Center, 1730 Berkley St., Elgin. As people who know what it’s like to be without shelter, they have extreme empathy for the people in Haiti. And so some of them approached the Executive Director of PADS, Dennis Hewitt, to find out what they could do to help.

Together they came up with this fundraiser, which PADS guests have organized. The guests will serve food at the event. The cost for tickets is $10 for adults, $5 for children, and $25 for families. All money will go to the Elgin Rotary Club to help purchase “shelter boxes” for the people of Haiti. The boxes include a tent, thermal blankets and sleeping pads, mosquito netting, a multi-fuel cookstove and cooking and eating utensils, water purification kits and tools.

Find out more about the event by calling PADS at 847-608-9744.

PADS Guests Go Back to School

From PADS newsletter, “The Journey Toward Home” Volume 4, Issue 3; by Brittany Mitchell. Reprinted with permission.

For many, the arrival of fall brings not only changing leaves, but also notebooks, pens, pencils and calculators. And guests at PADS of Elgin are no exception. This fall, case managers have a record 10 people working toward earning their GEDs and attending nearby Elgin Community College pursuing degrees in fields such as welding, truck driving, and nursing. With an average of forty people staying in shelter each night, that amounts to 25% of current PADS guests pursuing educational opportunities!

What has caused this surge in the thirst for knowledge? Well, one of the most obvious reasons is location. Since 2007, PADS has operated the Douglas L. Hoeft Resource Center, which is a short 5 minute walk to the main ECC Campus. This location makes it easy for people with limited transportation options to get to their classes.

The second reason for this rise in PADS guests becoming students is a combination of a sluggish economy and proactive case management. Since unfortunately there are currently few job options for guests, case managers have taken this as an opportunity to encourage people to use this time to take classes. Learning new skills and earning degrees and accreditations can make the more marketable workers once the economy picks up.

“We’re very proud to have so many of our guests attending school,” said PADS case manager Deb Loss, “no matter what your age or situation, everyone can reap the benefits of being life-long learners.”

If you’d like to volunteer to help at PADS, sign up on the volunteer opportunity listing on our site.

Elgin Man Awarded for Volunteer Work

Courtesy of The Courier-News

The Courier recently ran a story about an Elgin man who was honored for his volunteer work in the city. Fazel drives 1,000 miles a month traveling from local businesses to churches and other organizations. J Fazel volunteers six days a week, delivering food to organizations that help seniors, homeless and unemployed people.

Six nights a week, Fazel runs the kitchen at PADS of Elgin in addition to cooking the men’s breakfast at Epworth United Methodist Church In Elgin every Friday. His spare time is spent organizing the program to supply food to a local food shelter at Epworth, delivering Meals on Wheels with Sherman Hospital and participating in the Elgin Cooperative Ministry. He also leads Venture Crew 9911 of Girl and Boy Scouts ages 14 to 21.

Fazel was recently awarded with the 2009 Andrus Award for Community Service from AARP. Fifty-three individuals are chosen to receive the award each year from each state, D.C., Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands each year. Fazel was also invited to the AARP’s volunteer appreciation even held at the governor’s mansion in Springfield.

Fazel’s wife was the one who wrote in the nomination letter, citing the fact that her husband “brings love and fellowship to the people he helps.”

Fazel has been awarded for his volunteer work before. In 2005, he was awarded the Elgin Image Award and has also been recognized by the Boy Scouts of America numerous times in his 63 years with the organization.

His volunteering began when he started transporting food from Piggly Wiggly and Cub foods to a food pantry. The person who had been doing it moved away from the area in the early 1990s.

Now, Fazel picks up food from Holsum, Dominick’s, SuperTarget, Seattle Sutton’s Healthy Eating, Ultra Foods, KFC, Herb’s Bakery and Caputo’s Fresh Market. Some of the organizations he delivers food to include PADS, Community Crisis Center, Senior Services Association, Centro de Informacion and multiple soup kettles.

For information on how you can volunteer within the community, visit our Volunteer tab on our web site.

Demand still high at local nonprofit agencies

Recently, the Courier News has run a few articles focusing on some of the agencies we at United Way of Elgin support. Both articles center around the increased demand that started last year and currently remains just as high. With the economy just starting to turn, it seems it will be a while before these service agencies can start to balance out and return to more “normal” levels, or at least pre-recession levels.

Some highlighted facts from the articles:

• PADS provides meals and emergency housing for an average 40 to 55 Elgin area men, women and children each night.
• The fastest growing segment of shelter users at PADS is children.
• The homeless liaison at U46 has worked with 250 students this year, which is 110 more than last year, and last year’s numbers included flood victims—this year there have been no such natural disaster causes.
• 60 percent of the adults that PADS assists are “working poor”– men and women who, when at the shelter, get up early, help clean and then go to their jobs
• From January through July, the Crisis Center handed out more food than it did in the previous 12 months.
• The crisis center shelters about 40 women and children a night, with the average stay about 15 days per guest.
• 35-45 families a week get food from Two Rivers Head Start
• The Salvation Army recently experienced its largest-ever number for requests in a single day, 172, and had to turn 4-5 families away.
• The Salvation Army and other agencies are working toward the possibility of opening a food warehouse specifically to supply Elgin and South Elgin pantries.

The full articles can be read here:

Season of Need, A challenging winter ahead for agencies that help the homeless

Pantries Brace for Shortage of Food

If you’d like to help, a few volunteer opportunities are listed below. Click the link to sign up or find out more information:

Food Sorting and Distribution, Salvation Army, every Thursday and Friday to sort, pack and deliver food to needy families.

Reruns too, Resale Shop, Community Crisis Center, accept donations, assist customers, and organize merchandise.

Lobby Assistant, Community Crisis Center, Assist mornings in the lobby by greeting guests, filling food bags, handing out coats, hats, gloves and diapers. Providing a much needed smile!

Volunteer at an Emergency Shelter, PADS of Elgin, Distribute linens and food, help check guests, and assist in other shelter activities.

A note from the Executive Director of PADS on the current budget crisis

By Dennis Hewitt, Executive Director
July 2, 2009

In my 30+ years of working with agencies that support the needs of the poor, the downtrodden and the out and out needy, I have seen  some fairly mean spirited acts committed by officials of Illinois Government.  I have followed state government since the Paul Powell shoe box scandal of the 60’s and have been disappointed time and again by irresponsible acts.  However never have I been as disillusioned with the powers that be as I have been with the State Legislature’s lack of ability to come to a solution that will create funding for infrastructure, state services and to support drastically needed social services.

Today, I have seen a constant flow of emails advising me of services that will no longer be available to shelter clients.  These include mental health services, recovery programs, healthcare, services for the developmentally disabled, children’s early developmental and child care programs, services to protect adults, children and seniors from abuse, and education programs for latchkey and disadvantaged children just to name a (not so) few.  I am also hearing of plans to close all of the mental health facilities except for the three state forensic units.

Although we are not planning to close our doors at present, if the current budget stands, our ability to serve our shelter guests and outreach to clients would be devastated.  We would be faced with a shelter full of clients with a myriad of needs and no way to help them.  In partnership with over 60 government and social serices programs, we have been able to reduce the percentage of our chronically homeless clients by almost half (53% to 28%) over the past 4 years.  The loss of these partners would result in the complete collapse of a well functioning effort to educate, rehabilitate and reintegrate the area’s poorest and most underserved citizens.

We’ve been lobbying, rallying, and pleading our case to both legislative and executive branches of our state government. We are continuing to do everything that we can do, but we need your help.  Please contact those who represent you in Springfield and let them know that you expect representation for children, seniors, the mentally ill and abused that have no voice.  They need your support.

How I Live United: Dennis’s Story

My name is Dennis Hewitt. I’ve been working with PADS of Elgin for 14 years…8 as a volunteer, and the past 6 years as the Executive Director. About 14 years ago, I became interested in the local PADS emergency shelter program. A group from my church was volunteering and my wife and I became part of the group on a regular basis, sometimes as often as 4 times a month. When the Executive Director position became available early in 2003, I felt called to apply. While my background is in psychology and social work, I had been in business for the past 30 years and felt I needed to return to helping those who needed it most.

PADS had done a wonderful job of supplying emergency shelter over the past 14 years but had not always served the organization’s needs efficiently. I felt that I had a three-pointed approach that could help bring PADS out of its financial dilemma and also give the organization recognition as a valuable social service within the community.

1.) Use business and social service industry best practices to create a true social service “business” environment for the organization.

2.) Create a case management network that would serve the needs of clients while encouraging them to seek answers to the circumstances that had brought them to us.

3.) Engage related agencies and government programs in an effort to form partnerships that would efficiently and effectively approach safety net needs within the community.

In August of 2003, Pat Yauch, PADS developmental director at the time, and I were asked by then City Manager David Dorgan to help find ways to deal with the homeless issue in downtown Elgin. We convinced the city to sponsor a social service summit that would explore ways that social services and government could work together more closely to bring the largest number of needy persons inside the community safety net. Attendance was far better than expected, and a number of partnerships were formed over the next few years.

With the continued encouragement of the United Way, Elgin’s Care for the Underserved Network, the Kane Continuum of Care, Ruth Munson’s Veteran’s Resource Network, and several other like groups, this concept continues to flourish within the community. Today PADS interacts with over 60 agencies on a monthly basis to bring care and necessary services to Elgin area residents. I have also worked with other United Way volunteers in their recent food drives to help support local food pantries and as a member of their “Families Matter Council”.

Building partnerships wherever and however I can within the community – that’s how I LIVE UNITED.