From the Desk of the Executive Director: Rev. Kim Egolf-Fox

Greetings my companions,

Do you know Michael Donlon? Michael is tall and thick through the middle, a big man, and a strong man. That was not always so.

He works at the Salvation Army on Swede Street in Norristown, near the Center. He keeps the Salvation Army’s building serviced, repaired and maintained.

Michael is also in charge of their Christmas Program. He recruits, trains, transports, and relieves all the local Bell Ringers during November and December every year.

This year Michael will celebrate 14 years being clean and sober. Michael is a former client of the Hospitality Center. He says the Center saved his life.

Michael is not the first person who has told me that – “The Center saved my life.”

Your giving through the instrument of the Hospitality Center saves lives.

Years ago, when I was a pastor of Calvary Baptist Church on the West End of Norristown, and before the Center opened, I remember two to three times a month someone from the street would knock on the church door. I always opened the door, and did what I could with my Divinity degree to try to meet some observable need, never feeling competent to address their real or fabricated crises.

I was not alone, either. Other pastors, priests and rabbis in the community went through the same motions each month with persons knocking on their doors. I have estimated that this procedure resulted in the equivalent of one week (40 hours) a month of service, often inadequate, offered to the poor and homeless of the community in 1991 by the religious leaders in the community.

Those clergy collaborated to accomplish what they could not do alone. The Norristown Ministries Inc. interfaith leaders started the Hospitality Center in January 1992 in the belief that at that place the disadvantaged persons of the community could take their complicated needs and be better serviced than before.

Today the Center is open from 7 am to 11:30 am Monday to Saturday. That is 27 hours a week. Two full-time employees and three part-time employees currently staff the Center. Each week Volunteers on site donate over 125 hours of time serving the poor. The staff invests 161 hours a week working with and advocating for the homeless.

The pioneering commitment of 40 hours a month made two decades ago by local congregations has resulted today in a total of 286 hours of better service provided for these neighbors each and every week (That’s 1,144 hours each month).

Thank you for caring enough about our poor and homeless for 20 years to provide them with more effective ministry.

The federal poverty level for 2012 for an individual is $11,170, or $931 a month. The Center’s clients are all poor. Let me qualify that. All of the Center’s current clients are poor – economically, medically, and socially.

Not all the Center’s former Clients live at or below the poverty line. (You can hear from one such former client, Jonathan Lewis, by listening to him tell his story. Click on “About Us.”)

However, more and more Clients are falling from the middle class. The 2010 Census reveals that 48 percent of all Americans are now listed as low income¹, poor or homeless. That figure matches exactly the Center’s own internal tracking of recent Clients.

Personally I find that figure astonishing – 48 percent of all Americans are now, the first time in our history, living with low incomes or in poverty or are homeless.

The good news is that you have created a place where such persons can begin to put their lives back together. Two social workers and two mentor/life coaches staff the Center. The Center is equipped to help any lower 48 percent person or family recover from their downfall.

In addition to shelter and breakfast, the Center offers phone, fax, copies, notary, shower, lockers, case management and mail (If you do not have an address in this country, you do not exist!) – over 30 services in all. Did I mention that the Center does not charge for any services? All services are free.

Oh, I might not have told you that the Center operates without any government funding. The Center operates entirely with private funds – from individuals, congregations, groups, corporations, and foundations. The Center receives no less than $12,000 of In Kind donations every year. But the Center needs more help in these hard times.

The current cost per client to receive all services 313 days a year (The Center is closed on Sundays.) is $197, or $16.42 a month. (That is less than the cost of two movie tickets!)

In 2011 the Center was open 309 days (weather emergencies forced closure a few times), and provided shelter for an average of 83 persons per day. However during 2011, the Center sheltered over 90 persons per day 30 percent of the time. Daily attendance is increasing in 2012. The Center serves 20,000 breakfasts per year.

Michael Donlon (and others): “The Center saved my life.”

Your gift to the Center is a great return on investment. For $200 you can absolutely change a person’s life for the better.

Perhaps even save a life.

Saving a life. What better investment can you make?

Pastor Kim

Recently, ABC News reported that 1 in 2 Americans are officially classified as low income or poor. Learn More

(1) The US Census Bureau establishes the figures for low income and poverty level living. The low income figure is 150 percent of the base poverty level. For an individual, that is $16,755 a year. A family of four living at or below $34,575 a year is considered low income in 2012.