OUR IMPACT

Enjoy a few of our 2023 success stories!

Sedona and her children fled a domestic violence situation and went to live with family.  But there were twelve people living in the home and there was no heat.  They were cold and had nowhere else to go.  They reached out to us for help and we moved Sedona and her two small children into our emergency shelter.  Sedona worked six days per week at a local restaurant.  Her kids were able to remain in their Avon school, Sedona was able to keep her job, and we partnered with a local landlord   signed a lease for their new home in Plainfield!  They are safe and warm and now have an affordable rental.  Thank you so much to everyone who spent time with Sedona and her little ones and brought hot meals, and cheered her along!

Jorge, Mery, Rorianny (14) and Ramses (13) were living in Venezuela and doing very well.  Jorge used to play professional football there and life was good.  But the economy in Venezuela eventually became unstable and employment became very hard to find, with average pay being $10/month if you were lucky to find employment.  Because of this, Jorge went to Chile to work and send money home to his family.  But things became dangerous for Jorge in Chile when the violence and arson attacks started drastically increasing.  Jorge knew he had a family to get back to, so he returned to them in Venezuela.  Before long, food shortages in Venezuela forced this mom and dad to face the difficult decision of staying in a place where they could barely feed their children or make the dangerous trek to America.

They decided to take their chances on a better life in America.  The journey was hard.  Much walking, bus travel, more walking, picking up any rides they could, all rides headed toward their dream destination of America, where there would be enough food and healthcare for their children.  The total journey to the Mexican/US border took 2.5 months.

After crossing the border, the family made their way to family in Michigan.  But shortly after arriving in Michigan, Jorge had a heart attack.  This was surprising and devastating to this family.  Jorge had thought he was in perfect health but because medical care is so hard to receive in Venezuela, he had no idea that he had a heart condition.  If the heart attack had happened a couple weeks earlier during their trip to the border, Jorge would have died.

After staying with family for two months in Michigan, they were asked to leave so they came to Avon where they had friends who let them sleep on floor for a bit but they needed so much more help, so they contacted Family Promise.  We moved this sweet family into our emergency shelter and contacted Avon Schools so the kids could maintain the stability of the school they loved.  Rorianny and Ramses LOVE Avon Middle School and are thriving!  Jorge and Mery value education over everything and are making sure that they take advantage of this opportunity to for their kids to receive education in one of the best school systems in the country.  Avon Schools also provides English Learning programming and the kids’ English is improving every day!  We are so grateful to the loving people at Avon Schools and all the schools in our county who go way above and beyond to help all the families that we work with.  Our mission would not be successful without them!

This family worked so hard while in our shelter and were anxious for their own home. We were able to partner with a phenomenal private landlord in Plainfield named Rick Lee and he agreed to rent the most adorable home in Plainfield to this family!  I wish we had video of the kids when they saw their new house!  They ran from room to room opening every door, and asking if they were allowed to play outside in the backyard.  We told them, absolutely – it’s your yard now!

These stories of survival, love, and leveling up, are what we live for here at Family Promise.  We selfishly wanted to keep this family at our shelter forever because we came to love them so much.  But they’re only a two-minute drive from us now so we’ll still be able to be in close contact with them.

Thank you so much to all the many volunteers who came to know this family over the months they stayed with us.  And thank you to all of you who brought your kids who are around their kids’ ages, to befriend them.  It can be scary to be that young and in a country with different customs and language, but your kids got out their phones and communicated with them in their language and made them feel so accepted!  Thank you for that!