About Family Promise in Our Cluster
- What is Family Promise?
Family Promise is a national program providing shelter for homeless families using an interfaith network (group of local churches). At least 13 organizations partner to provide shelter. Each host organization provides shelter, dinner and breakfast for up to 15 people from Sunday afternoon until Sunday morning the following week. After that week, the families move to another mosque, synagogue or church for the next week. Each organization will typically host families four times in a year.
Information about the National Family Promise organization, including videos, success stories and a list of the cities where Family Promise is operating can be found at www.familypromise.org
Information about the Albany area affiliate can be found at familypromiseofthecapitalregion.org
The Albany affiliate plans to begin hosting families in January, 2015. The calendar for 2015 has not yet been set so we do not know what weeks our cluster of parishes will be hosting at the McManus Center in Rennselaer.
- Our Hosting Program
Our cluster will host families at the McManus Center, a facility at St. John the Evangelist/St. Joseph parish in Rensselaer. The McManus center has room for the families to stay, a kitchen for preparing food and cleaning up, and room to store the supplies and equipment that we will need to host families.
Volunteers from all the churches in our cluster (Church of St. Mary, Clinton Heights; Holy Spirit, East Greenbush; Sacred Heart, Castleton; St. John the Evangelist/St. Joseph) support the shelter by providing supplies, food and companionship for the families at the center. If you are visiting this page and want to participate in Family Promise with our parishes, please contact Deacon Tim by email or telephone. We welcome everyone to participate in this ministry with homeless families.
During hosting week, volunteers will be scheduled in blocks each day for dinner, evenings, overnight and breakfast. Hosting will typically run from about 5:30PM until 7AM the next morning. Volunteers can sign up for one block or multiple blocks.
