Sunday, July 19, 2009

The Big Event - Altanta Homeless Connect


On Sunday, October 25, 2009 a number of non-profit organizations, educational institutions, government agencies and the community at large will come together to recognize one important issue: Homelessness. Atlanta Homeless Connect will be Georgia's first major event to encompass a broad scope of collaboration to address homelessness using the federal government's Project Homeless Connect model. This model has been used successfully in a number of other states including California, Washington, Oregon, Iowa and Minnesota. The event will be registered as part of serve.gov, a community service initiative of President Barack Obama which runs from June 22nd to September 11th.

Here are the details of the Atlanta Homeless Connect event:

- The event will take place at Georgia State University's Sports Arena

- A number of non-profits and state government agencies such as Living Room, United Way, Salvation Army, Trinity Community Ministries, the Atlanta Mayor's office, Georgia Department of Community Affairs, Gateway, Covenant Community, The Anti-Aging & Vitality Center of Atlanta, The Sullivan Center and others will come together to provide program intake, information and resources to the community.

- We will provide refreshments and entertainment to all individuals who attend the event

- We will provide showers, hygiene kits, food, intake services and other resources to the homeless and at-risk community

- We will have a day of celebration to honor some champions to the cause of homelessness within the Atlanta area (Two pioneers in the fight to end homelessness will be retiring this year and we will honor their contributions.)

- We will showcase the many talents of homeless individuals by providing a talent show. We will also have a number of local artists from the community who would like to perform.

- Local universities will provide student volunteers and conduct a number of service projects during Atlanta Homeless Connect.

- The community at large is invited to participate and engage homeless individuals so we can increase understanding and awareness of this epidemic. (I would love to see this be an event for the whole community with food and fun. I hate the stigma of homeless in the title but we need to bring awareness to this problem.)

You are invited to help organize, participate, perform and volunteer. If you are interested in participating in this event please go to http://www.cleopatrajones.org/ to join the social network and register at serve.gov (this registration is very important in organizing the event). I will be providing you with more details about the event on the website. We can change the world one person, one household, one neighborhood, one community, one city, one state, one nation and........ one world at a time.