Open House Ministries receives $750,000 gift from the Tod and Maxine McClaskey Foundation for the Open House Ministries Family Resource Center.
Open House Ministries announced this week a major financial commitment to its capital campaign to fund construction of a family resource center on its campus in downtown Vancouver.
The Tod and Maxine McClaskey Foundation has awarded a $750,000 grant to the $3.3 million dollar project. In recognition of this commitment, Open House Ministries will be naming their new campus addition the Tod and Maxine McClaskey Family Resource Center.
Open House Executive Director Renee Stevens comments, “The Tod and Maxine McClaskey Foundation has been a leader and champion for important projects in our community. Open House is honored and blessed for their generous support.”
The new Tod and Maxine McClaskey Family Resource Center will make a profound impact on the local community. The facility will provide a safe and secure indoor space for families and children to play and recreate, 365 days of the year. The facility is designed to accommodate moving administrative offices currently residing in the shelter. This will free up originally permitted apartments and allow them to be restored to their intended use: housing homeless families. Open House Ministries provides shelter for up to 107 individuals every night, over half of whom are children under the age of 17 years.
Stevens continues, “This facility will also allow us to reach people in our community and help those who are suffering with mental health, drug and alcohol, or barely making their house payments. We offer Financial Peace classes, life skills, GED, education, and we want to offer those to our community at large. So you won’t have to be homeless to use the new facility.”
Youth intervention is a high priority today. Stevens explains, “What we do here at Open House Ministries absolutely changes people’s lives, but our youth programs have been limited by our physical space. The new facility will literally give us the space to grow Open House Ministries youth programs, for our residents and surrounding community.”
So far the capital campaign has generated $2.8 million dollars towards its goal of $3.3 million dollars. Support for the project also includes a recent grants from the Firstenburg Foundation and the generosity of private philanthropists. Stevens concludes, “This new building will allow us to better serve our families, our community, our staff, our volunteers and anyone who stops by and needs a sleeping bag, a drink of water or cup of coffee. We need to be doing God’s work and meet people right where they are today.”
Open House Ministries is a faith-based community organization serving homeless families by providing shelter, intervention services and Christ-based life restoring programs to homeless families.
For more information contact
Judy McMorine, Development Director
Open House Ministries
900 West 12th Street
Vancouver, WA
As Senior Case Manager, Stevens brings 12 years of social service management and homeless provider network experience. Board Chairman Dick James says, “Renee brings a depth and understanding of the social service needs for the population we serve and years of working with our strategic partners in Southwest Washington and throughout the Pacific Northwest. She has personally been responsible for forging and strengthening key alliances. Renee is a strong leader internally, in Vancouver and in the region. She is passionate about finding solutions for homeless families.”
“I am looking forward to continuing to serve our homeless families and our amazing partner organizations in this new capacity,” remarks Stevens. “I am dedicated to this work because it provides vital services and hope for a new life to the homeless. I have seen the Open House Ministries experience change lives and help people start over who otherwise would not have had a chance. I am honored and blessed to be given this opportunity to serve.”