Dear Friends,
Happy February! 2021 is off to a great start at Opportunity Place. This time last year, our board adopted the ambitious mission of ending homelessness for families and women in Okaloosa and Walton counties, and set in place a five year plan to make that dream a reality. I am proud to report that, despite the challenges of COVID, we accomplished 9 or our 10 goals for 2021: We re-oriented our data management around housing first principals, we revised our operational policies to ensure they were trauma informed, we leveraged donations to make the shelter environment more therapeutic, we got trauma-informed training for all of our staff, we digitized our communication, financial, and data management practices, and we won an Impact 100 grant or a new building!

We were able to do this, all while continuing to shelter families and women (in the midst of a global pandemic) because of your support. And now we are ready to do even more in 2021. You can read about our 2025 vision and our 2021 goals on our website. They are as ambitious as our 2021 goals and each of them is critical to breaking the cycles of homelessness in our community.

The two I want to highlight this month are expanding our volunteer program and the opening of the First Steps Empowerment Center. There will be lots of opportunities to help with both of these and we hope that you’ll be involved. If you are ready to get your feet wet, come volunteer to help us re-organize our donation center so we easily and quickly meet client needs as they arise. Or help us get ready for National Reading month in March by signing up to read to our kiddos! As always, check out our amazon wish list for current shelter needs.

Thank you for your ongoing support of Opportunity Place. With your help, I’m confident that we will be able to accomplish all of our 2021 goals and more! Visit our website for more!