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Mission
SERVE, Inc., a non-profit community organization, together, with volunteers, donors, and public/private partners is dedicated to strengthening the Prince William County, Manassas and Manassas Park community through comprehensive programs and partnerships that provide basic needs and promote economic independence for homeless and underprivileged individuals and families.
Key Facts
Geographic areas served:
Prince William County, Manassas, Manassas Park
Target demographics:
Each year, the SERVE Family Care Shelter assists over 600 people. In an average month, SERVE provides food to 750 families and financial assistance to 300 people. We serve those in our community who are low-income or vulnerable due to a n unexpected crisis in their lives.
Results to date:
Family Emergency Shelter: Provides temporary emergency shelter for 60 homeless men, women and children nightly and includes a comprehensive case management and child services program. In FY 2008, almost 20,000 nights of shelter were provided for over 543 individuals. Approximately 7,500 of those nights were provided to children.
Community Transitional Housing: Operates 11 transitional housing units in the Prince William/Manassas area. Eligible families and individuals receive subsidized housing and intensive support services for up to 24 months.
Food Distribution Center: Provides emergency food assistance that effectively prevents hunger in the local community. SERVE receives food donations from individuals, local grocery stores, area farmers and markets, and through food drives run by dozens of churches and community groups. We distributed over $1.2 million worth of donated food to over 700 households monthly.
Life Skills Training Program: Promotes independence by providing clients with basic skills for living. Training includes classes in word processing, employment development, household maintenance, budgeting, parenting, and other important skills that give individuals the ability to achieve independence.
Emergency Assistance: Provides financial counseling and assistance for rent, utilities, medical prescriptions, and transportation. Almost 400 households received an average of $225 in financial aid. More than $73,000 in cash assistance was provided for our community’s most vulnerable citizens.
EA also processes vouchers for free supplemental food, school supplies and provides information and referral about resources throughout the county. In total, the Emergency Assistance office provided 8,343 individuals with a variety of aid throughout the year.
Holiday Signature Programs:
Signature programs such as Operation Turkey, Adopt-a-Family, and Secret Santa Shop provided special assistance during the holidays. In 2007, Operation Turkey provided Thanksgiving baskets to 3,894 individuals representing 1382 households. Secret Santa Shop provided 22 shelter children with unwrapped gifts to give their family members. Because of the generosity of the community, parents were able to shop also. Fifty families were adopted for the holidays in SERVE’s Shelter, Transitional Housing and Emergency Assistance programs.
Direct beneficiaries per year: We provided direct services to over 8,300 people this year, helping them with shelter, food and housing.
Indirect beneficiaries per year: The entire community benefits from a strong and vital citizery.
Obstacles:
Despite being able to leverage approximately $10 to every $1 donated, we are finding it very difficult to obtain sufficient unrestricted revenue to meet operating needs. At the same time, the current demand for client services has increased 35%. In addition, most funding we currently receive is program specific and the reimbursement schedules for many of the programs have long lag times, thus creating revenue stream difficulties.
The current economic environment creates increasingly more complex and costly challenges that no single organization can mitigate alone. Instead we look to partnerships and collaborations for combined resources to help stabilize families and get people back to self sufficiency. It is these partnerships and collaborations that are the essential link to bridging gaps in service within our community and finding efficient and effective ways to help.
One effort that will improve the effectiveness of these relationships is a Faith Summit. As part of this summit, SERVE is working with local nonprofits and the faith community to improve communications and resource allocations among service providers, the faith community and nonprofit stakeholders. This effort is an integral link to increasing a support base, eliminate duplication of services, and establish new protocols for handling client services in the most effective way. This would result in improvements in quality and quantity of service delivery throughout our community.
Today’s difficult economic and environmental climate presents a challenge to many working families and marginally self sufficient individuals. We hope to work more closely with local government to receive funding that would afford us the ability to provide services within an integrated community approach to address community challenges. Our intent is to be regarded as a valuable community partner that helps community leaders solve local issues.
What your donation will allow us to do:
Your donation enables us to main adequate levels of service so we may meet the current needs of our clients.
Your donation of $43 enables us to:
To feed and shelter a person for a day
Your donation of $300 enables us to:
To feed and shelter a person for a week.
Your donation of $1,900 enables us to:
To feed and shelter a person for a typical stay of 45 days.
Board Members and Affiliation:
Addison, Kip Vulcan Materials
Bergeron, Mark JPMorgan Chase
Bestimt, Linda Retired CEO, Celebrate Fairfax, Inc.
Connie M. Dalton McGettigan & Dalton
Gomez, Juan Lockheed Martin
Heltzel, John John F. Heltzel, A.I.A.., P.C.
Houston, Tim Prudential Carruthers Realtors
Jones, Lester Past President
Navy Federal Credit Union
Krein, J. Scott J. Scott Krein, P.C.
Nelson, Steve Junction Travel
Runkles, Kenneth Treasurer
CFO, E.K. Fox & Assoc. LTD
Phyllis Shrader-Robinson Remax Olympic Realty
Spicer, Raymond
City of Manassas Dept. of Family Services
Sturm, Robert, Chair
Scott & Stringfellow
Weiner, Jennifer
Congregation Ner Shalom- Rabbi
Wilson-Sogunro, Kisha
City of Manassas, Neighborhood Services Coordinator
Past and Current Funders:
SERVE receives funding from many sources, to include state, federal, local government, corporations, foundations, churches, United Way, individuals and from special events. The top five contributors to our funding streams over the past two years have been:
2007-2008
• Special Events, such as Hoops for the Homeless, Capitol Steps, Miniwalk, Bowlathon, Empty Bowls, Feinstein Challenge and others, bring in 23% or $317,184.
• Local government funding makes up 16% or $214,490 of SERVE funds. These local governments are the cities of Manassas and Manassas Park, as well as Prince William County.
• Individuals, clubs memorials and workplace contributions (other than UW) make up 11% or $155,399 of funding for SERVE.
• Federal funding sources, which include the Department of Justice, Housing and Urban Development and FEMA, comprise 11% or $152,184 of SERVE funds.
• State funding sources, which include the State Shelter Grant, Historic Resources and Neighborhood Assistance Program awards make up 10% or $133,931 of SERVE funds.
The top contributions from single entities:
Hoops for the Homeless benefit which provided $150,285.
The Department of Justice award provided $125,000.
Combined State Shelter/Child Services Grant provided $108,806.
Capitol Steps benefit provided $62,680.
The Freddie Mac Foundation award provided $50,000.
Key Staff
Cheri Villa, President/CEO
Cindy Provenzano, Director of Social Services
Matt Burrell, Director of Shelter Services
Jan Hawkins, Director of Volunteer Services
Becky Edwards, Human Resources Coordinator
Mary Jo Dick, Food Distribution Coordinator
Johana Pinzon, Emergency Services Coordinator
Gail Hoffman-Komro, Transitional Housing Coordinator
Gerald Middlebrooks, Resident Advocate Coordinator
Sherry Fullerton, Child Services Coordinator
Thomas Williams, Resident Assistants Coordinator
Laurent Daniels, Food Services Coordinator