Stories of Hope

Have you ever cooked steak in the microwave? Matthew Davis hadn’t either. But when the food service professional moved into the City's DC General Family Shelter last year, he missed his kitchen, so he got creative. “I’d make eggs for my daughter in the common microwave,” he said. “Once, I even cooked steaks in there!”

With 20 years of experience as a cook, Mr. Davis did not expect to end up unemployed or living in a shelter. A single father of a 10-year-old girl, the two of them moved to Washington, DC to be closer to supportive family. But his job search proved to be unexpectedly difficult, and when he exhausted his family’s hospitality, he had nowhere to go.

When Patricia decided to get out of her abusive marriage, she knew her bold choice meant leaving a good job and friends. But it also meant safety for herself and her 12-year-old son. They moved 400 miles away to Washington, DC to stay with family and start again. But life in DC was not easy. Her relative turned out to be verbally abusive as well, and Patricia and her son found themselves with nowhere safe to go. “I just had to get myself stable and secure again,” she said. “Not for me, but for my son.”

Imagine the joy of welcoming a child into the world, only to be told soon after by family and friends that your baby is a demon. That is what happened to Mireille when her six-month-old began developing differently than most children in her home country of Gabon.

First, he had trouble lifting his head. Months later, he started having seizures and struggled to sit up. Mireille’s family sent the two of them to a traditional healer in the jungle. When his condition did not improve, she was encouraged to kill her child. A determined mother, Mireille started looking for ways to seek more effective treatment – and safety – for her son.

When David Mitchell was laid off from his food service job at a DC charter school, he did not expect to be unemployed for long. He’d worked there successfully for six years, and his layoff was simply due to a budget cut. But three years and countless job interviews later, David was still unemployed. At 32-years-old and living with his grandmother, he lost his confidence and stopped looking for work.

So when David was handed a flyer for Community of Hope’s customer service soft skills training program last year, he looked at it skeptically. “Is this just another program,” he wondered, “or is this really going to help me?”

If you live in Washington, DC, you know we’ve had a cold winter. Over 4,000 men, women and children in DC have sought shelter in the last few months. Homeless singles fight for space at shelters or in warm doorways. Before families head to emergency shelter, they sleep in their cars until the weather gets too cold. Others bounce from one friend’s couch to another’s until they wear down their friends’ hospitality. Some parents even drop off their children at friends’ homes for the night, while they themselves sleep on park benches – prioritizing their children’s safety over their own.

Every day at work, Iman Graham sees first hand how tough life can be as a homeless child. That’s why she recently volunteered to join our mentoring program, and she hopes you’ll consider volunteering, too.

As an Assessment Specialist on our staff, Iman’s job is to interview homeless families at DC’s emergency shelters, screening them for placement into an appropriate long-term housing solution. She works on the front lines of homeless services, listening compassionately as families describe the struggles that drove them to homelessness. Whatever the circumstances, by the time these families end up in emergency shelter, they are in crisis.

Alanda Braxton-Miles brings joy and a smile wherever she goes. But over the course of the last few years, this grandmother, Ward 8 homeowner and preschool teacher grew mysteriously sick – so sick that the simple tasks of daily life became a struggle. She had two strokes, two years in a row. She experienced waves of exhaustion and chronic pain. Gout in her leg caused uncomfortable swelling. But perhaps the scariest symptom of all was the occasional bout of memory loss. She joked, “I called them my dummy days.” Her symptoms got so bad that her work performance was slipping, and she started taking sick day after sick day. “I started worrying that I might lose my job,” she admitted.

This month we are shining a spotlight on our volunteer, David Houck, who mentors Cy'los, an 11-year-old boy in our housing program. When David's roommate moved away from DC earlier this year, he recruited David to take over his role in mentoring Cy'los, ensuring that he would continue to receive excellent support.

The transition was smooth, and Cy'los' mom La'Kisha is happy with the enriching experiences that her son has had with David.

34 years ago, Jacqueline Aird was a 16 year old living with her mother in an apartment on Belmont Street. That’s when Ms. Aird first became our patient. At the time, Community of Hope had just opened a small health center in the same building where Ms. Aird lived, and her mother sent her downstairs for her back-to-school checkup. We have moved and expanded since then – from that small facility on Belmont Street to three federally qualified health centers across the city – but we have been there for Ms. Aird the whole time.

We’re excited to feature a volunteer who put her talents to use to create two stunning and unique quilts that were recently displayed at our annual event, A ‘Sparkling’ Night of Hope.

That talented volunteer is Carolyn McShane, avid quilter and mother-in-law of our President and CEO, Kelly Sweeney McShane. It was a big task that took many hours of work, and the results exceeded our expectations.