Signed,

The Robinsons

Corey, Tasha, Kyra, Corey, Tatiana & Snowflake

  Discovering Opportunities for Outreach and Reflection (DOOR) is a faith based network of urban service-learning programs that expose, educate, challenge, and motivate participants to respond to the issues and concerns facing an increasingly urban world.  Program offerings range from a weekend to a year and include opportunities for individuals and groups.

Each Wednesday throughout this summer a different group of  volunteers through the DOOR – Atlanta program will be visiting Clifton and rolling up their sleeves to pitch in with the day to day operations and to learn more about homelessness and what they can do back in their own hometowns to make a difference.

This week Clifton hosted a youth group from First Presbyterian Church in Palaski, TN.  When our youth group volunteers arrive at Clifton the staff introduce themselves and our Volunteer Coordinator has them step back outside to begin a mock intake session to help them understand what our guests experience as they come to our Night Hospitality Program. They learn about all the different things we do at the Ministry, including Joe’s Place, Joe’s Ladder and Clifton Living. We offer them education on homelessness and sometimes they get to visit and talk to a couple of our guests and hear about their experiences.

Thank you First Presbyterian Youth Misson Group!

Thank you so much Garden Hills!

Recently we were visited by 20 6th and 8th grade students from Wake Forest, NC who were in Atlanta doing a Haiti simulation misson training. They slept in makeshift huts for a week in 90 degree weather and ate uncooked food from trash bags to gain a deeper empathy for what the earthquake survivors are going through in that nation.

After 5 days of intense heat and no showers they headed over to Clifton sanctuary Ministries where they volunteered for 9 hours before finally being able to retire to a motel to cool off and clean up.

Our clothing closet had backed up with donations for a few weeks so they had mounds of clothes to sort by type, condition and size. The enitre dining are of Night Hosspitality looked like a clothing factory as they set up tables and beagn building piles. Many of the clothes needed to be washed and folded so they did that too.  They swept and cleaned the downstairs, polished the stainless steel freezers and ice machines and then took a very short break as they waited for our guests to come home so they could serve them dinner alongside of our dear friends at Community Friendship.  

The group was amazing, especially considering what they had already gone through during the earlier part of the week. And they really made the clothing closet ship shape once again. Thank you Wake Forest and Thank you Community Friendship!

OptumHealth

Recently we recived a phone call from Carmen M. Aponte, Sr. Administrative Assistant at OptumHealth  in Plano Texas. She explained that OptumHealth was having it’s 2nd quarter meeting in Atlanta at their Dunwoody offices and they wanted to do a community service activity with their budget instead of the usual corporate dinner. They found out about Clifton from our web page and contacted us. They asked everyone attending the meeting to bring one of each thing on the Clifton wish list. Clifton Resident Manager Reggie Jones took the seats out of the Clifton van and drove it  to the headquarters near Perimeter Mall and loaded  it up with the bags of donations while Donald Long talked to the board members about the many wonderful things that Clifton does. One board member followed Donald to the elevator and wrote out a personal check while thanking Clifton for the work that we do. You just never know where your blessings will come from. THANK YOU OPTUMHEALTH!

Jonathan Lin, VP for Unite For Sight and Tiffany Ellerbee, our representative from the Georgia Lighthouse Foundation have facilitated Clifton’s participation in this program. Unite For Sight students/volunteers come to Clifton and conduct the vision screenings. They provide vision testing monitors and conduct individual examinations on each guest. Once the examinations are complete, our healthcare case manager, Brenda Gales, delivers the results and paperwork to the Georgia Lighthouse Foundation. They then process the applications and contact those guests who meet the requirements for prescription glasses.

This program has been tremendously successful and there has been such a large demand for the program services that the process of getting a referral for professional fittings takes about 4-6 weeks. It is not unusual for the guest being served by Unite For Sight to have left Clifton by the time the appointment for their glasses fitting becomes available. Guests provide additional contact information when making application for services and they are encouraged to contact the foundation for follow up. This is another opportunity for us to educate the guests about taking charge of their own health – if they don’t follow up, they lose the opportunity to have glasses.

Additionally, The Lighthouse Foundation also provides a variety of strengths and styles of reading glasses.  And being that the average age of a Clifton guest is 49 years old, those reading glasses surely come in handy for our guests.

We hope to expand our partnership to other agencies which would increae the number of sites where homeless individuals can obtain vision screenings. This program is yearning for additional collaborative partners to increase the number of sites where individuals who are homeless can receive this very needed service.

One of the goals of the Clifton Board of Directors for the past several years has been to implement a permanent housing program.  Recently, with the help of federal funding received through the “Federal Stimulus Plan” this dream has become a reality.  Clifton Living – kind of like Southern Living – has recently placed three men in their own homes.  The program works like this….to qualify for this program, a guest must have income that meets established federal guidelines (not too much, not too little).  An apartment is rented with the guest, along with Clifton, as the lessee.  Clifton Living pays the rent and utilities for a three to six month period of time.  During this time, the guest is expected to participate in all Clifton programs and at the end of the three to six months, Clifton’s name will come off the lease and the guest will have their own home!

In order to accomplish the goals of this program, we have hired Mayme Grant as our Clifton Living Case Manager.  Mayme’s responsibilities are to find apartments that are safe and affordable, qualify the guests into the program, and assist them in budgeting and other skills needed for independent living.

Congratulations to Robin, Mackie, and Quinn, and David for being accepted into the Clifton Living program and we look forward to hearing great things from you all in the future.

Trinity’s original chapel and education building are not fully being utilized and the congregation became aware that there are many homeless folks who live in their area.  Cecelya Taylor, stated supply minister at Trinity and Clifton Board Member, approached the CSM board last year with the idea that we begin thinking about how the two groups could work together.  Through very intentional planning and thought, we have set a goal of establishing a case manager program to be housed at Trinity in the space that is craving to be used during the week.  This case manager will work with Trinity’s neighbors who are homeless to refer them to the appropriate agencies to get the services they need.

If you would like to become a founding financial partner with Clifton at Trinity, please contact Leslie Prince, CSM Board Member for details.  She can be reached at (770) 377-0027 or leslieprince@comcast.net.

And now that summer is upon us, we would request that you not forget your friends at Clifton.  Our current needs at the Night Hospitaly include canned or fresh fruits, liquid dish detergent, canned or powered milk, peanut butter and jelly, sugar, underwear – briefs (sizes medium and large) and undershirts (sizes medium, large, extra-large). Also, at Joe’s Place, we still need an air-conditioner.  So if anyone has one laying around the house that still works, the guys would apreciate it tremendously, especially in this Atlanta heat!

If you have not been by Clifton recently, please notice our lovely, newly paved parking lot! Thanks to all of our volunteers and donors who helped make it possible.

We also have a community garden on the grounds and are looking for volunteers to help with tending the garden or providing more plants.  So if you are an experienced botanist/horticulturist or even just someone with an intest in gardening, please stop on by and volunteer some of your TLC and time!

God bless you all!