Saturday, November 19, 2011

Open House & Opus One

Meet the New Executive Director

You're invited to a Holiday Open House to meet Carolyn Gordon, our new Executive Director.  If you haven't been to the Family Promise Center before you can also take a tour.  Punch and cookies will be provided!  Please come welcome Carolyn to the family!

WHEN: Sunday, December 11, 2011 from 5:00pm to 6:30pm
WHERE:  The Family Promise Center - 2104 St. James Church Road, Wilmington

Opus One Concert

After the Open House, consider attending the Opus One concert at St. James Episcopal Church - right next door to the Family Promise Center!  It's recommended that you purchase tickets in advance.  A portion of the ticket sales will benefit Family Promise.  Thank you, St. James!  Here are all the details!



A Musical Christmas Story

“Sing Joy,”  a musical rendition of the Christmas story using contemporary music selections, will be presented on Sunday, December 18, at 7:00pm at White Clay Creek Church, 15 Polly Drummond Hill Road, Newark.   The program is free and open to all.  A love offering will be taken for Family Promise, a local ministry to homeless families.  Handicapped accessible.  Contact the Church Office at (302) 737-2100 with questions.

New Congregation!

We welcome Skyline United Methodist Church to the Family Promise network!  In the words of congregational coordinator Vicki Gordon-Stith:

 "Skyline takes great joy in joining the Family Promise team! As a congregation, we emphasize Radical Hospitality and Vital Spirituality and hosting families in our facilities allows us to live that radical hospitality in a way that we trust will nurture us spiritually. We look forward to learning the process and growing in faith through this life-giving mission."

Friday, November 11, 2011

New Executive Director For Family Promise!

Carolyn Gordon has joined Family Promise as our new Executive Director! She comes to us with tremendous experience, capability and enthusiasm for our mission.  Carolyn can be reached by calling the FP center or email:  carolyn.gordon@familypromisede.org.

Please feel free to stop by the FP Center during working hours to say hello. She also will be reaching out to meet others in the community and the wonderful volunteers in our congregations.

We also would like to thank Merrie Bailey who has served as interim ED for much of 2011. She has provided tremendous contribution to FP during this period, with particular strides in increasing the successful housing & job placement of our families. Thank you Merrie!

Carolyn Gordon Bio:

Carolyn Gordon is bringing to Family Promise over eight years of experience working in the non-profit sector. She has held a variety of roles including manager of a regional crisis hotline, direct care for adults with developmental disabilities, and case manager for at-risk youth. She has a MSW and an undergraduate degree in Psychology.

For the past four years she has created and managed Social Enterprise programming. Social Enterprises are small businesses that have a double bottom line: to hit earned revenue benchmarks while having a social mission. Her particular enterprise experience involved managing a retail and online bookstore, farmers market and a café that all served as job training for at-risk young adults. As a result, not only did she generate positive outcomes and receive political and media attention, she prides herself in making a mean latte and has an extensive personal library!

Under her leadership, youth served doubled and over 80% of the clients transitioned on successfully to full time employment and/or education endeavors. Additionally, funding was secured for the next four years and earned revenue increased each month. The outstanding outcomes she witnessed were due, in part, to supervising a tremendous group of volunteers and garnering resources from local congregations, businesses and schools.

She is very excited to bring her program development and evaluation expertise, case management experience and enthusiasm to Family Promise. She looks forward to helping the families of Family Promise achieve self-sufficiency.