Shelter families supported by Good Shepherd Alliance (GSA), aka the Good Shepherd of Northern Virginia (https://goodshepherdnova.org/) joined Natalie Ramos and her crew at her new restaurant at the clubhouse of Lansdowne Woods for a Christmas brunch just before the holidays. The warmth and joy they experienced decorating cookies and receiving presents from Santa was likely doubled by the team that served them.
GSA runs shelters that can house up to 34 people. The largest of these is an emergency shelter called Hebron which can house families for 89 days or less. Additionally, they support six other transitional houses: one house for single women that serves four, two apartments for six people total, and three other communal houses for women and children that serve 14 people. Beginning with the emergency shelter, through which all temporary residents pass, case workers are assigned to help them with benefits, child care, health care and any other resources they may need. After they move on from emergency housing they have a year to work toward finding a more permanent solution.
During that year, residents save the income they earn that doesn’t go to rent and leave with a kind of escrow account that helps them secure permanent housing. The group’s four thrift stores, Hope’s Treasures, help support the group’s work, as do donations and fundraisers like Handbags for Hope, a fundraiser brunch that auctioned off donated designer bags at Belmont Country Club in January.
That fundraiser was specifically marked as a way to launch programs like summer camp, after-school programs and scholarships so kids can afford the sports equipment, lessons and other programs that others in the county enjoy. The latter program is a passion for Isabel Mayer, Director of Missions with Good Shepherd Alliance. Isabel cites the McKinney-Vento federal program for children counting 1,900 children in Loudoun as having no fixed, regular, adequate nighttime residence. She’ll celebrate two years with the charity next month, during which time she’s helped GSA hold job workshops from Crossroads Jobs and provide cooking lessons from BetterALife Foundation and financial counseling, all focused on helping residents live independently.
In the new year, a coalition of Loudoun faith-based organizations will begin to make use of a local version of Careportal.org, linking them to specific, tangible needs posted by non-profit case workers. In this way, Isabel hopes that more people will both see and be able to provide what families need in real time. “If I'm a Christian, and I read the Bible, it says to help the poor, and the widows and the orphans. That's my job. That's what I should be doing.” This portal will help.
“I think people are just not aware that there's homelessness in Loudoun County,” Isabel said. “It's very hidden in many ways. These are women with children saying, ‘I need help. I want to make myself better, and I want my kids to have a better life.’”
Those who’ve been on the cusp of desperation do know, and Natalie is one of those people who will never forget how much having a helping hand meant to her. Besides providing food for shelter families right before the holidays, she filled a couple of shopping carts with toys for the kids. Natalie and other women like her will have an opportunity to share how they were able to triumph through hard times in a new feature for GSA’s transitional families that Isabel is calling, “Motivational Mondays.” By hearing others’ stories, “they have hope. And hope is in short supply sometimes.”
Someone else who will never forget is one little girl who came to Natalie’s brunch and asked to save her gold spoon along with the cookies she decorated, “to remind me of the best day ever.”
“If I'm a Christian, and I read the Bible, it says to help the poor, and the widows and the orphans. That's my job. That's what I should be doing.” Isabel Mayer
One little girl who came to Natalie’s brunch and asked to save her gold spoon along with the cookies she decorated, “to remind me of the best day ever.”