ORION COMMUNITIES INC

Orion's overarching goal is to assist our neighbors in need in moving from crisis to increasing stages of stability and well being. Orion assists individuals and families dealing with poverty, illness and disabilities to move toward a brighter future. Clients are encouraged to become self-sufficient within their own physical, emotional and cognitive capabilities, thereby improving their lives as well as the health of the larger community.

In addition to providing critical and essential resources and bringing community leaders together to collaboratively address larger challenges, Orion creates programming to positively improve the trajectory of our clients' lives. For example, one-on-one financial coaching, a trauma-informed program for single moms and our innovative STARS program were created in direct response to expressed unmet needs in the community.

Orion's professional Case Management team helps create bridges for our neighbors to move towards increased self-reliance and a healthier tomorrow. Orion is known for working with the poorest of the poor and people who don't where else to turn. Orion connects those in need with available partner agencies and resources. When an individual or family in need does not qualify for existing programs, Orion's Case Managers can provide direct aid to help stabilize a household. In 2022, Orion provided over $150,000 from our Community Emergency Fund plus more than $150,000 in hotel stays to people moving from homelessness to permanent housing. 3500 individuals were assisted without any government funds.

But it’s not just the money, it’s the hope. Our communities work best when we have opportunities to be neighbors helping neighbors. This winter a woman called Orion seeking assistance with repairing the heater in her home. Her husband had recently died but when he was alive, he would have fixed the problem. She had been sleeping in a cold home for weeks. She was hesitant about calling and felt guilty about seeking help from Orion because she felt like she was taking away from those "really" in need. She finally was cold enough to become brave enough to make the call and she met with a Case Manager. Orion was able to team up with a community partner to cover the full amount of the repair. Additionally, the Case Manager was able to help her connect with other community services. She shared her experience with friends and neighbors who didn't realize she was in need, and they stepped in to help in other areas of her life, including home repair and driving to the store and appointments. She no longer felt isolated and shared, “You gave me so much more than financial assistance; thank you for helping me see how many people care about me.”

Working collaboratively with community leaders and stakeholders, Orion is able to raise awareness about the needs of those who are struggling.

Orion Communities takes a micro and macro approach to addressing the needs of our most vulnerable neighbors. On the individual level, Orion works to address the pressing and immediate needs for life's basic essentials to help individuals and families with basic essentials. This begins with our Bridge Case Management Team. These staff and volunteer professionals assess the situation presented by our neighbors in need, help create a plan with the client for moving forward, connect our clients with critical resources, partner with other agencies to meet the most immediate basic needs and help the individual and family move towards stability and improved well being.

On a macro level, we listen to the needs of our clients looking for common/repeated issues and then work in community to address unmet and systemic gaps in services. Orion helped launch a winter night shelter for the homeless and an affordable housing task force that includes local government, developers, landlords, non-profits, business leaders and other stakeholders. This group has identified public and private sector opportunities for addressing the need for housing that is affordable and accessible for lower income households which has entered the next phase of implementation.

Education on the realities of under-resourced families can be a full-time job. Fortunately, Chester County is becoming a ‘Bridges Community’. Bridges Out of Poverty is a national model to help communities build an understanding of, and language around, local poverty so they can develop local solutions.

About 5 years ago, several Chester County nonprofits realized that we all were working with Bridges Out of Poverty and had valued the program enough to pay for certifying staff as trainers to provide community leadership workshops. This led to the formation of the Chester County Bridges Coalition to support each other’s training efforts, share new material, and contemplate what it might look like when the whole County becomes a Bridges Community.

Program - Orion employs Case Managers who work with the clients and other partner organizations to address the immediate and longer term challenges for individuals and families struggling to secure life's basic essentials. Both demographic and case-specific metrics are collected and analyzed to ensure that clients' needs move toward resolution in a timely manner, that both the client and Orion are aware of their respective responsibilities to work through the issues, and that systemic gaps in the community can be identified and brought to community leaders to develop collaborative solutions.

Financial - Orion is a grass roots organization that does not receive government funding but has developed financial support through a varied network of private donors, foundations, businesses, and events. Orion also partners with local agencies to leverage our collective funds to effectively and efficiently benefit the greatest number of people in need. For the last six years we have had matching gift challenges to raise new funds and the goals have been exceeded each year.

Management - In addition to the strong case management team and professional managers, Orion's Executive Director has an MBA with 30 years of management and entrepreneur experience. Orion's Board includes program and executive expertise, as well as diverse backgrounds and lived life experiences.

Orion was founded 45 years ago and restructured in 2014 to ensure our organizational goals were still relevant and needed in the community. Since then the organization has grown from seeing 15 clients/month to over 240 clients/month. As Orion has grown, the community has positively responded by increasing their financial support. Orion typically distributes an average of $12,000-15,000/each month from our Community Emergency Fund. Orion has also received funding for a program to provide hotel stays for people moving from homelessness to permanent housing.

In addition to the daily struggles of under-resourced households, Orion has been an early responder to recent fires, condemned and flooding that caused individuals and families to suddenly be homeless and lose their affordable housing. Orion's team has the experience to address immediate housing and clothing needs as well as provide trauma support, help replace critical documents such as birth certificates and social security cards and help people get back on track to resume their lives.

Orion is known in the community as the place to begin in times of trouble. Whether the issue is poverty, loss of home or job, physical/cognitive/emotional disability or illness, Orion knows who can help or can provide additional resources to help our neighbors move towards a more stable and healthier tomorrow.