Hope Lives Here

by Kim Eppehimer, Executive Director & CEO

Friendship House serves 14,000 people every year. It’s phenomenal to think about the impact our small yet mighty organization has on our community. That includes 10,000 people we give clothing to, 3,000 people we keep from losing their housing, and the hundreds we help to navigate a difficult system as they find their footing with a substance abuse disorder or reuniting with the community after release from incarceration.

It’s not easy work, but it is deeply fulfilling. Largely, because every person who works at FH understands how quickly and all too easily people find themselves at a loss, feeling alone, and needing a loving supportive community they can call home.

This kind of community has been needed this year. Seeing millions of people feeling the impacts of changing policy, increased cost of living, and lack of programs to support their wants and needs, I turn to FH to look for hope and a reminder of the good in the world.

It’s pretty easy to do.

This winter, I saw it at our Winter Saturday Hospitality program as the diversity of people coming in to seek warmth sat next to those who are more than willing to provide it in the form of a smile, a chat about the news, or time to work on a puzzle together.

During these freezing cold nights, I saw it as our many faith communities opened their doors to bring in folks who would otherwise risk their lives sleeping outside without proper shelter. Our Code Purple emergency shelter program is so needed as people who are desperate for survival seek safety, security, and a place they know they belong – even if just for the evening.

I saw it on the face of a child in our housing program, who, through tears mixed with joy, shame, remorse, and gratefulness, thanked Friendship House for saving her and her mom.

I saw it on Martin Luther King Day as we hosted hundreds of volunteers at the clothing bank giving their time in remembrance of all Dr. King fought for.

In Dr. King’s last speech before he tragically lost his life, he said he had been to the mountaintop, and when he looked over the mountain he saw a land of hope. Winter can be a dark time for so many – and it may feel like your personal season of winter may never end. But in that same speech, Dr. King also reminds us when it is the darkest outside, we get to see the stars. It is in these darkest moments we must remember – the promised land not only exists, but we are all worthy of getting there. Whether you are housed, unhoused, rich, poor, black, white, cisgender, nonbinary, happy, sad – we all are worthy of goodness, of being loved by another, and of returning that love.

Friendship House is my reminder of that promised land.