Hope House provides assistance to 11,000 annually - News Article Locations on Waymarking.com

People volunteer at Hope House for a variety of reasons.

Most become longtime helpers at the nonprofit Christian emergency relief organization, Mary Lois Yates, Hope House coordinator, said.

“Once we get a volunteer -- unless they get a health issue or something -- they pretty much are part of the organization and become family,” Yates said. “They enjoy helping other people and the fellowship, too. That draws them in.”

Serving Franklin County residents since 1990, Hope House, 304 S. Walnut St., Ottawa, works closely with local churches, county and city agencies to provide “physical and spiritual assistance to individuals and families through Christ-centered giving and caring,” according to the organization’s website.

Hope House provides assistance for basic necessities through its food pantry and clothing area. Its weekly distributions are 9 a.m. to noon Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday and 9 a.m. to 11 a.m. the second Saturday of the month, according to its website.

“Counting adults, children and seniors, Hope House served 11,051 people [last year],” Yates said.

That total represented 3,320 households and an average of 921 people per month, she said.

Hope House provides a variety of emergency assistance, Yates said.

Last year, the organization assisted 19 families with lodging, 68 families with utilities, 21 with rent, handed out five gas vouchers, and provided other types of emergency assistance on 10 occasions, she said.

Hope House receives food donations from a variety of groups, churches and individuals in the community, as well as monetary donations to purchase additional food, Yates said.

In 2016, they received 99,405 pounds of donated food for its pantry, she said.

Hope House is about more than emergency assistance -- it’s about providing people with hope for the future, Yates said.

“We would hope we could help people overcome what causes them to come in,” she said. “It’s always a goal to try to get people to better their lives.”

While Hope House has been serving more than 11,000 people annually for several years, family dynamics have changed, she said.

“We’ve really seen an increase of grandparents raising their grandkids,” Yates, who has been with the organization almost since its inception, said. “So when people come in, it’s nothing to have quite a large amount of people in one household. And you’re seeing that also sometimes because of finances -- a lot of them group up in a house.

“We’re there when they need us,” she said.

Hope House also is a supporter of Ripples of Change, a program that helps people get out of poverty, she said.

?[Ripples of Change] helps people set goals and learn how to budget,” Yates said. “We try to support those kind of programs that can enable [people in need] to better their lives.

“That is something that is always in the forefront,” Yates said. “We are hoping we can make a difference in their lives. Not just give them food for that day, but trying to be supportive and encouraging for them to get employment. We really do make it known to the people that come in that there is a program that can help them do that, that they won’t be by themselves.”

Yates said literature about the local Ripples of Change program is available at Hope House.

When Hope House organizers put out the initial letter about wanting a central location where people could come for assistance, Yates seized the opportunity to jump in. The longtime coordinator has been with the organization for 26 years.

“A light bulb went off for me. I knew this is what I wanted to do,” Yates said after receiving the initial letter. “We started having meetings and trying to organize and one thing led to the other.”

The organization has about 55 volunteers but could always use more, Yates said, to help with things like unloading donations of food and clothing to helping with distributions and other needs.

Some churches and other groups have volunteered at Hope House through the years.

Currently, local Boy Scout Troop 77 has been a tremendous help on Saturdays with picking up donations of everything from food to freezers, as well as other chores, she said. The troop also has started a community garden on Second Street between Cedar and Oak streets, she said.

“They are the meat of our volunteers on Saturdays,” she said. “And they’ve really gone gun ho [with their garden], and that’s awesome.”

Yates said she appreciates the support Hope House receives throughout the year.

“It’s really the community and the volunteers that make Hope House what it is,” she said. “You know, if we didn’t have the community support and wonderful volunteers, we couldn’t do what we are doing.”