Family Promise Needs Your Help Today!

While we’re usually celebrating positive milestones in the lives of our Family Promise guests, right now, we urgently need your help after two significant crises in less than a week.

On Saturday, the water pump alarm at the Day Center on Method Road sounded. Staff, volunteers and guests had to utilize the facilities in an empty transitional housing apartment until our trusted plumber figured out how to repair the pump.

Yesterday, the large tree in the grassy area between the Day Center and the transitional housing apartment parking lots split in half, dropping onto the cars of two of our guest families living in transitional housing. We are extremely grateful no one was hurt. As the tree removal company worked to clear debris from the parking lot, the other half of the tree toppled, thankfully without further damage.

Neither of these setbacks could have been anticipated or prevented. Our plumber has been doing this work for a long time and said he’d never seen so much water in a well house - the pump was actually floating about 8 inches above ground. And the tree removal specialist on scene said that in his 20 years of doing this work he had never before seen a healthy tree fall in front of him.

We are working hard to address the unprecedented damages that have occurred on our property and to prevent further damage from occurring. We’re clearing fallen limbs and removing another suspect tree. We’ve renting cars for the impacted families while trying to find them permanent transportation solutions. And water has been restored to the Day Center.

While our staff has risen to meet this challenging week and our families are keeping their heads up, we need your help. The necessary repairs to our plumbing and landscaping and to our guests’ cars are expensive, and, unfortunately, none of these repairs is covered by insurance. We know the need is great across our nation and the Caribbean in the wake of Hurricanes Harvey and Irma, but today there is also a huge local need you can address. Please consider making a donation to Family Promise to help us with these necessary repairs.

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Family Promise Stories: Meet Derwin

Even though he works two jobs and takes extra shifts when he can, Derwin could not keep himself and his two sons in a home. After moving to Raleigh, they lived briefly with family, then in a hotel, then for a few nights in their car.

“My sons pretty much took everything in stride,” Derwin said. “They’ve encouraged me to be strong, too.”

Someone put him in touch with Family Promise of Wake County, and, two weeks after his initial call, he moved into the emergency shelter program with his boys.

“I didn’t know what to expect. Homeless shelter has a stigma to it,” he said. But what he found with Family Promise surprised him.

“I didn’t feel like any less of a human being. I felt like we had the opportunity to improve.” Volunteers at the host churches talked with them and provided meals. There were activities for 12-year-old Quez and 10-year-old Yekiel in the evenings.

“I liked meeting new people and learning new things,” said Quez.

Now, they live in one of Family Promise’s transitional apartments and are on a path to independence.

“I really like it,” Yekiel said of their apartment and the room he shares with his brother. “We have a bunk bed. I get to sleep on top!”