Looking Back, Moving Foward

This past June marked my three-year anniversary at CHHOP. Every year at this time, I stop and take a minute to review what has happened at CHHOP during the past 12 months. It’s been an especially busy year with the Covid-19 outbreak, remote work and significant programmatic changes. Our Board of Directors is comprised of active and engaged members who have helped lead the organization through a time of significant transition while ensuring the continuity of services that our community depends upon. 

Given the tremendous difficulties of these past several months, we could not have continued our work without the active engagement and support of our community. Thank you for ensuring that the most vulnerable among us are fed, sheltered and celebrated as an integral part of the human family. Some of our accomplishments from this year are highlighted below.

Revenue

Budgeting and generating revenue are the lifeblood of any nonprofit organization. I am pleased to report that for 2018, CHHOP received a clean financial audit. Our 2019 starting point was to develop an agency budget clearly showing rational allocation of our resources. During this past year, CHHOP has obtained increased funding to support our programs. Due to the Covid-19 pandemic our costs increased as we needed more cleaning supplies and additional food for Fred’s Pantry to meet demand. To meet those needs, we obtained a $175,000 PPP forgivable loan. We diversified our fundraising through various grants, foundation support and private donors and received nearly $143,000, an increase of 69 percent against the total for all of 2019. In addition, our 2019 annual fundraiser that many of you attended, raised over $24,000 including $10,000 in corporate sponsorships.   

In addition, to better track and engage the individuals, foundations, organizations and businesses that so generously donate to make our work possible, we implemented a new CRM tool that specializes in the nonprofit sector. 

Restructuring 

To best serve our clients at CHHOP, we took measures to restructure our staffing to clearly delineate areas of responsibility. With that step, a few of our existing staff members were promoted to jobs with increased responsibility, which also helps them to grow in their careers. Our staff is incredibly dedicated, and we are committed to providing opportunities for development and growth within the organization.

Programs

Making our services as robust and helpful to our clients as possible is always the goal at CHHOP. Fred’s Pantry, our food pantry, went through a major transition and restructuring this year to improve service to those experiencing food insecurity. The Covid-19 pandemic has hugely impacted Fred’s Pantry due to an increase in demand — in the first 15 weeks of the pandemic, more people were served at Fred’s than during the entire year of 2019. New procedures had to be developed to meet that demand as well as to ensure that we safeguarded the health of our clients, staff and volunteers.

 We enhanced our shelter-based support services by adding case management staff to assist clients with obtaining housing, health and social services, employment, and educational services. There are few things more gratifying than bidding good-bye to a client as they move forward to build a new life. 

Importantly, during the past year there has been no turnover with our Turning Point clients. Turning Point is our supportive housing program that addresses the needs of those who have a disability and have been experiencing homelessness long-term.

Clients are most successful when organizations work together to leverage their services. To that end, we successfully developed a new collaborative program, “RISE”, which serves domestic violence survivors and their families. The “RISE” program, which we operate with My Sisters’ Place and Lifting Up Westchester, includes a Program Manager, An Emergency Housing Unit Case Manager, an Employment Specialist, and a Domestic Violence Advocate. This collaborative program allows us to assist and support domestic violence survivors as they rebuild their lives more easily. 

Communications

It’s important for CHHOP to remain an active and vital part of the Peekskill and Westchester community. To that end, we need to get the word out about what we’re doing. That has involved developing new communications strategies. You’re seeing one of those right now, our revised newsletter --- CHHOP update. We have enhanced our social media outreach to let our neighbors know about what is happening at CHHOP and to let our clients know about our expanded Fred’s Pantry hours. In addition, I have authored several articles on hunger and homelessness during the past year.

 Prior to the Covid-19 pandemic, I and CHHOP staff, board members, clients and volunteers participated in several community events. While in-person events have pretty much come to a halt over the past few months, we worked on a food drive led by New York State Senator Peter Harckham in May. Over 10,000 pounds of food and over $4,300 was donated to CHHOP/Fred’s Pantry during that food drive.

It has been a year of growth fueled by unprecedented challenges and we thank our community, our neighbors and the various foundations, organizations and businesses whose support has been instrumental in making this a successful year for CHHOP.

Best regards

Cynthia B. Knox, Esq.

CEO CHHOP