Dear Friends,

In a few weeks, Family Promise of Sarasota will become a reality and the first four carefully screened homeless families will be hosted overnight for one week at Pine Shores Church. Pine Shores is one of the many congregations participating in this important interfaith project. Temple Beth Shalom is also one of the participants and will be hosting some time this summer and three more times in the next year. The families spend their days at The Family Promise Day Center where they are guided into new jobs and places to live and are returned to the hosting congregation in the evening where they have dinner and stay overnight. The beauty of the project is that parents and children will be able to live together during this time.

This program has been in existence throughout the United States since 1984 and thousands of homeless families have benefited from it. Just as rewarding will be the opportunity for you and your family to engage in Tikkun Olum (repairing the world) work. Because of the intense pre-screening, only the most promising families are brought into the program and they generally are stabilized and moved into their new homes in about 60 days.

It is time for TBS to gather in members and friends and their families who are able to help prepare for and or willing to volunteer for this project sometime during the weeks we are hosting.

Among the attachments is a sign up form you can return to me if you are interested. You can also send the form along to other members of the congregation and friends both Jewish and non-Jewish whom you think will want to participate.

All volunteers will be asked to attend a training session in advance of our first hosting week. For those who sign up but cannot attend the first training or participate in the first hosting week, subsequent training will be available for other hosting weeks .

If you have further questions, please e-mail me at judieinsarasota@comcast.net (please enter TBS Family Promise in the subject heading) or call me at 941.377.2030.

Judie Yellin
Co-coordinator for TBS Family Promise

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