|
GrAce Ministries
First Annual
Report
January -- December
2006
GrAce is
“gracefully Aging with community encouragement.”
GrAce is all
about reaching out, building a caring community to meet the needs of
homebound seniors and their families.
GrAce is a
ministry designed to help families grow together through the aging
process.
With these
thoughts, hopes, words, and prayers the Lord began to move in our
community. These hopes and prayers led to
GrAce Ministries being
established. I am pleased to report that our first year of
operations has been a great success. We have been able to provide
assistance to homebound senior citizens and their families living in
our area in a wide variety of ways, both directly and indirectly.
First, I would like
to share a little of our history with you.
-
GrAce
Ministries
received its Certificate of Incorporation from the Office of the
Secretary of State in August 2005.
-
Our
organizational meeting was held Feb. 13, 2006 with seven
supporters present.
-
Our By-Laws
were adopted on March 14, 2006, when our initial Board of
Directors was established and we held our first election of
officers.
-
The Board
appointed Mary Lou Brown, LBSW, CIRS, GCM, Executive Director in
March 2006.
-
We received our
IRS tax exempt status letter on May 20, 2006.
We established our
plan for meeting the needs of homebound seniors. The services
provided to each individual are based on the needs of the senior and
their family. Services can include:
Geriatric assessment; Development of care plan to meet the needs
identified; Assistance in implementing care plan; Coordination of
services needed; Aging-in-place home assessment with housing
adaptation and/or modification assistance; Encouragement and prayer;
Home visitation; and Reassurance telephone calls. Seniors are
assisted in accessing existing community resources to prevent
duplication of services including assistance with applications and
eligibility requirements. Geriatric care management services
are provided by a trained geriatric care manager and provided on a
sliding scale fee system based on the senior’s ability to pay. All
homebound seniors are eligible to receive services, regardless of
ability to pay.
Very early in our planning process we realized that, in order to
meet the vast needs of our community and ensure that the program
would be affordable, we must have volunteers. Therefore we began
development of our volunteer program,
GrAce now
recruits, trains and matches community volunteers with homebound
seniors to provide services that are not available in the community,
to reduce isolation and to promote fellowship. Volunteer services
are always provided without charge.
GrAce Ministries started 2006 with prayer and enthusiasm, but no
funding.
We were blessed to
end the year with over $11, 000 in the bank. These funds were
primarily raised by our Board of Directors through our Goofy Golf
Event in October, a yard sale in November and our own “Santa for
Hire” Board member in December.
Funding was also
received from Ocean Lakes Campground Church, the Senior Services
Network, the Wendy Clay WMU and many generous individuals.
|
|
|
Services
Provided in 2006 |
|
|
|
|
|
Geriatric evaluations/consultations 39 |
|
|
|
Referrals to home health and non-medical home health
agencies 7 |
|
|
|
Information only calls 7 |
|
|
|
Assistance with Medicaid applications 2 |
|
|
|
Volunteer hours directly with seniors 28 |
|
|
|
Volunteer Hours for special events 225
|
|
|
|
Families
assisted with Angel Food Ministry food boxes 15 |
|
|
|
Assistance with housing/rehabilitation needs 2 |
|
|
|
Placed
with homebound seniors 2 |
|
|
|
Worked with special events only 6 |
|
|
|
Active
volunteers---11 members of Board of Directors 19 |
| |
During our second
year, we need to stabilize our funding by seeking a larger
church/community organization support base and applying for more
private foundation funding. We also plan to establish a more
concrete presence in the community by setting up an office. We hope
to recruit, train and place more volunteers with homebound seniors.
We need your
continued prayer and support to achieve our mission!
GrAce Ministries'
faith-based mission is to help our neighbors to grow old gracefully
and with dignity, to live independently and age in place if that is
their wish. We will accomplish our mission by supporting homebound
seniors and their caregivers through personal assessments, care
management, advocacy and education regarding available goods and
services. Additionally, we will encourage volunteerism and
community involvement in the care of our local aging population. |
