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Dear Home Away Volunteers,
We hope this message finds you well. As part of the leadership team at BACR, we want to keep you all in the loop about the current plan regarding A Home Away From Homelessness. First, we want to strongly appreciate your commitment to Home Away and your generous donation of time and talent to benefit the incredible youth we are so fortunate to have the opportunity to support.
In case we have yet to have the pleasure of meeting in person, we (Mariana and Don) are the BACR leaders supporting A Home Away from Homelessness. Bay Area Community Resources (BACR) is a non-profit organization with over 40 years of experience and a successful track record of developing and implementing youth development programs across the San Francisco Bay Area. We currently have 132 expanded learning programs in five different counties. Home Away, although with a unique model, is one of the programs in our expanded learning industry. A Home Away from Homelessness was founded as a separate non-profit organization in 1994 and, in 2012, merged with BACR. Since that time, the program has operated under BACR leadership.
As I'm sure you have heard, most educational and publicly funded programs are struggling with budget cuts. Unfortunately, Home Away, like many other programs sponsored by the San Francisco Department of Children and Youth, received a sizable funding reduction starting this July. However, despite a decrease in funding, we are pleased to inform you that the program will continue to operate, and we will do our best to ensure our offerings for the kids will remain unchanged. To do this, we must restructure our staffing model to make the program sustainable and continue providing individualized support to our students.
We are in the process of recruiting a senior manager who will oversee the entire program starting next school year. Our current youth specialist and our volunteer and outreach manager will continue working in the same capacities, and two new AmeriCorps members will also join us to support case management and other daily activities. The College and Career program will need to be reduced, with the post-high school case management being very limited in scope moving forward. The Beach House program will continue with a wider scope and more integration with the students in the School House. Please rest assured that we understand how important it is to provide stability for our students. We are confident that a part-time college and career coach and a Beach House coordinator who is integrated into the School House by providing weekly trips will help us offer a smooth transition for the kids. These two roles are currently being negotiated, and we expect all staffing decisions to be made by the start of summer.
We recognize that this program news is important to you, and we will confirm some details before sharing them with the wider Home Away community. We are a resilient program, and we are confident these changes will not impact our core mission.
Additionally, to strengthen our program further and ensure its sustainability, we are actively seeking new funding sources. We have recently applied for grants from private foundations and corporations. Our goal is to raise the $200,000 we lost through grant reductions by the end of next year and be able to restore some of the cuts we have made.
We would appreciate your help in letting us know if you know about potential corporate matching opportunities. Home Away is a great program, and foundations and corporations seem happy to support us. If you have any questions or concerns or know of any opportunities for sustainable grant funding, please let us know at mlopez@bacr.org or dblasky@bacr.org
Thank you for your continued support and dedication to HomeAway. Your efforts are invaluable, and we are committed to maintaining the essence and beauty of this program for our wonderful kids. Please contact us with any program-related questions so that we can address your suggestions and concerns directly.
On a very exciting note, stay tuned for Home Away's 30 Year Anniversary celebration in the fall!
Best regards,
Don Blasky Mariana Quintanilla
BACR CPO BACR Industry Director
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