The Success of Atlanta Homeless Connect

In the pictures: Milton Little, Michael German, Sarah Ford, Dwight Eubanks, Dr. Lana Wachniak, Chamequa Holdsclaw, Iziane Castro Marques

What made Atlanta Homeless Connect a success? It was a collaboration of the community coming together to help those who needed a helping hand:

- Over 40 non-profit agencies came together to provide food and services to our invited guests.

- The event had over 50 corporate sponsors who provided over 40,000 dollars worth of gift-in-kind and monetary donations to make the event a success.

- Talented men, women and children provided their gifts of song, spoken word and acting skills to entertaining our many guests.

- Showers, hygiene kits, goodie bags, T-Shirts, long distance calls, foot treatment and snacks were offered to the guests

- Jungle gyms, balloons, facepainting, and games were offered to the children of our guests and volunteers

The outcomes from the day were very impressive:

- 879 guests and their families were served during the activities

- Over 400 volunteers gave their time and efforts to make the day a success

- Over 30 people were placed in housing
- The data is being tabulated on the demographics of the guests and a report will written to reflect the full impact of the day.

Atlanta Homeless Connect was a day full of fun and resources for the homeless of Atlanta. All sectors of the community came together to bring awareness to this growing epidemic and make the day memorable for people who are considered invisible to our society. Please read the attached links to find out about National Project Homeless Connect and the Interagency Council on Homelessness and their role in making Atlanta Homeless Connect a success.

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.