Mercy Drops Dream Center is aiming to accomplish the goal of transforming a city one person at a time. We transform a persons life by finding their need and then meeting that specific need. As we find the needs in the community, we live out what we value most as an organization. We value showing love, giving respect, keeping it simple, as well as be persistent and consistent until the need is filled. We want to show love to everyone, because we believe everyone deserves to be loved. We want to give respect, because in the world today it seems everyone must earn respect before it is given. We believe in keeping it simple, no need to over complicate what it takes to impact someones life. We will be persistent, we will continue to show up in peoples lives until they are flourishing regardless of the difficulty or challenges. Lastly, we will be consistent, we will continue to provide the resources when we are expected and be there when we are needed.

Mercy Drops Dream Centers strategy for achieving our goals is to be in the individuals life in order to build an authentic, lasting relationship that produces change. Once we build an authentic relationship, we are allowed the right to speak into an individuals life. Trust and confidence is everything our strategy is built upon. We build the trust and confidence by showing up on a weekly basis, meeting needs and providing resources for those in need. We work as the middle man to connect those with the resources to those that need the resources to flourish in life.

Mercy Drops Dream Centers capability to meet our goals will be directly related to our volunteers, our community partners, relationships that we are building in the community and our community development. Currently, we have 50 to 100 volunteers that help us go into the community 6 days a week, 52 weeks a year to impact our community, without our volunteers, this organization does not exist. Our community partners, whether companies, organizations, other nonprofits, churches or community groups help us in finding volunteers, resources and funding to allow our programs to operate 6 days a week, 52 weeks a year. Our capability to build lasting relationships in the community is a huge reason we have the ability to meet our goals. We pride ourselves on taking the time to be authentic. Our community development is another reason we have the capability to meet our goals. Through our private donors, corporate donors, our sponsorship's, gifts in kind and grants, we have been able to grow each and every year that we have been in existence. These are all components that will give us the capability to meet our goals for our organization.

Mercy Drops Dream Center learns about progress through collecting data, by engaging the community through personal surveys and measuring outcomes compared to our baseline assessments for each of our programs and outreaches in the community. We take time every year to measure our successes. Sometimes, progress means cancelling a program or outreach that is not meeting a need in the community. We will also know if we are making progress through the relationships we build within the community with churches, companies, organizations, nonprofits, sponsors, donors, families and individuals in each neighborhood we serve. Another way we measure progress is through our Men's Transformation Program. When the individuals that graduate our programs and become a productive part of society, we know we have made progress. If our outreaches and programs continue to grow and more people are in need of what we are providing, we consider that progress. Overall, when we find a need and then it is filled, that is a win and progress.

Since we have launched the organization in 2010, we have been able to provide -17,426+ care packages to those experiencing homelessness -emergency shelter for those experiencing homelessness for 2 years during the summer/fall seasons -given out 3,500+ articles of clothing -given out 450+ pairs of shoes -given out 9,000+ lunches through our partnerships with Mercy Chefs and Chickfila Portsmouth Blvd -given out 106,000+ pounds of groceries through our partnerships with 7-11, Operation Blessing and the community -provided Christmas for over 500+ children over the past 4 years -established Adopt A Block programs in 9 neighborhoods in our community -launched an Adopt A Block site for Veterans -provided transitional housing for 3 homeless families for a total of 3 years -provided transitional housing for 10 men that have been dealing with life controlling issues -provided 10,000+ volunteer hours served -raised over $400,000 to impact our community Covid-19 Update: Since March 2020, we have provided the following: -each week we have given out 5,000 meals for students not receiving meals from school (to date May, 14th, 45,000 meals) -we have grown from 1 to 4 grocery distribution sites and given out 40,000+ pounds of food to our community -we have launched 10 community gardens to fight the hunger in our community -have launched a partnership with Pharrell Williams, World Central Kitchen and Roger Browns to feed 600 hot meals per week to the community -we now have 9 outreaches operating 6 days a week to better serve our community in this time of need