NEW HOPE MINISTRIES INC

Short-term, immediate goal: Increase food security and other basic needs

Intermediate goal: Acquire knowledge, skills, and opportunities to increase self-sufficiency

Long-term goal: Increase financial security through workforce development and employment

Last fiscal year, New Hope Ministries helped close to 20,000 people with financial stability by providing food and other basic needs (such as heating and utility, housing, transportation, and medical assistance). All families visiting New Hope for food assistance are also assisted with applying for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, or food stamps) and Women Infant Children's Program (WIC). Our self-select food pantry model, and successful approach to connecting our guests to available resources ensures that basic needs are being met and families are not going hungry.

When receiving immediate assistance with basic needs, our guests also receive information about opportunities to learn valuable information and skills to improve their self sufficiency. For example, at our fixed and mobile locations, our staff and volunteers teach Dollars and Sense budget classes, nutrition education and cooking classes, soft skills and computer classes, and GED classes to help guests move to a place of greater financial stability. We also connect people with governmental resources, help them find jobs, and get on a payment plan for utilities. All of this information - often times unknown to those we serve - helps our guests achieve stability in their lives during a burdensom time of uncertainty.

Going one step further, New Hope endeavors to help people with long-term security by providing resources that prepare guests to enter or rise up in the workforce. Our Job Junction program helps people create a resume, look for work, obtain interview apparel, and prepare for successful interviews. We partner with community businesses to offer job fairs at each of our centers. Our workforce development programs include Nurse Aide training, forklift driver training, and a CDL Class A truck driving class. We also offer a scholarship program that helps guests obtain financial assistance to attend post-secondary education and obtain job training. All of these education, workforce development, and employment programs better position our guests for success.

New Hope has a reputation of being able to do a lot with a little. This is due to our low operating costs and because we own many of our facilities, and the tremendous efforts of our 2,500 volunteers who make everything we do possible. Last year, New Hope served 19,555 people in York, Cumberland, and Adams counties. We were able to not only help with food, housing, and heat, but were able to offer our guests help with job training, GEDs, financial literacy, and good paying jobs. New Hope has a data collection system in place for information related to all of our programs called Link 2 Feed. Specifically, we track demographical information on all individuals and families that receive services at New Hope, as well as how services relate to outcomes. Every time a service is received or utilized, it is recorded in our web-based client database by the staff person responsible for the program, or by a trained volunteer. At any time, any staff member can run reports and analyze the utilization of our programs and the demographical details of those who utilize our services. This outcomes data has been instrumental to the development and growth of our programs. As is the goal of our various funders, we want to offer programs that have measurable success in the lives of our clients. For example, we've been able to identify challenging areas of our programs, and make changes that improve the scope of our mission, and capture data that translates well into analysis of our outcomes.

Through our six offices and five monthly mobile food pantry locations, New Hope provides an array of basic needs services, including access to our food pantries to prevent hunger; casework to help people meet their immediate needs and help families work toward long-term goals; housing assistance with rent, heat, and utilities to avert homelessness; and identification of other community resources. New Hope's food pantries receive and distribute almost four and one half million pounds of food each year and are known as a model food program in our region.

Beyond basic needs, New Hope equips guests – the people we serve – to move toward stability. Programs which reinforce this vision include “Dollars & Sense" classes to teach budget and money management skills; nutrition and cooking classes to help guests learn how to choose and prepare healthy meals on a budget; job training programs that help with resume building, job search, preparing for interviews, soft skills, job fairs, and obtaining appropriate workplace attire; and education and workforce development opportunities including high school equivalency (GED) preparation classes, Nurse Aide classes, Forklift Certification Training, and a CDL Class A Truck Driving program, where we partner with a local trucking company to provide education and on-the-road training. New Hope's strategy is to meet families at their point of need and develop a plan to help them achieve financial independence.

New Hope works with the families we serve to provide quality youth educational programs including homework assistance, reading and writing skills, life skills training, and community service opportunities, preparing low-income and at-risk youth for success in school and in life. Complementing our mission to prevent hunger, we also offer a Backpack Program, which provides nutritious, easy-to-prepare foods and fresh milk to families with children over the weekend and summer months when free and reduced school meals are unavailable. In addition to serving the youth in the families through our service locations, we partner with 35 local schools in five school districts, providing over 2,700 Backpacks every month.