Restore Hope Ministries, Inc.

We seek to restore hope for families in financial crisis, that they may regain stability through their crisis and move toward economic and spiritual vitality.

We seek to restore hope by reducing hunger--a condition which can dramatically decrease one's level of hope. We do this through a food pantry of choice which not only seeks to provide food but to do so in a way that is empowering and dignified.

We seek to restore hope by preventing homelessness--another condition which can send a family spiraling into further poverty. Through our assistance, on the other hand, we seek not only to help families retain stability but to move toward a better future through case management and other resources.

We seek to restore hope by promoting hope through our chapel program. We do this through (optional) chapel services, prayer volunteers, and providing bibles for those who do not have one (and request one from us).

We have 40 years of experience providing food for families in need. Over that time we have developed best practices in our intake process, data collection, and have consulted other organizations to develop best practices for food distribution. With a newly-remodeled food room, larger warehouse storage facility, and other improvements, we feel we are well-suited to meet food insecurity challenges ahead. As an affiliate with the United Methodist Church, a member of the Community Food Bank of Eastern Oklahoma, and with our other local connections, we are confident in our networks of support.

In the area of homeless prevention, we are one of the most successful agencies in the country based on independent measures of success (national average is 70% success, we achieve 99+% success). We are successful because of our excellent staff, years of experience in the field, and program design and implementation. We are well-known in the homeless service network in our community as the lead agency for homelessness prevention.

With a United Methodist pastor as our Executive Director, and a connection to United Methodist churches and resources, our chapel program is well-suited to meet spiritual challenges for our client families and our community.

We have successfully implemented a move to "pantry of choice" and are now offering a more healthy selection of food in addition to a higher level of quality. This not only provides better food (output) but also contributes to an increased level of hope (outcome) over the year before. Not knowing what changes there will be in the federal nutrition programs, we believe we are well-suited to meet challenges ahead should need increase.

Despite already high levels of success, we actually did see increased success in preventing homelessness in the past year. We have also made programmatic changes to remove barriers to our assistance that have been there in years past.

We have seen growth throughout our chapel program but still see areas of improvement in which we are actively working.