Freddie Mac Foundation Grant Helps Formerly Homeless Children Prosper

So Others Might Eat Receives $400,000 Grant for Independence Place Program 


MCLEAN, Va., April 12  /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- So Others Might Eat (SOME) is best known for serving up to 900 meals each day to homeless individuals and families in the Washington, DC area.  But SOME today is more than a food program, and offers job training, healthcare, family services and housing options.  In fall 2005, SOME opened Independence Place, which provides supportive housing to 21 formerly homeless families and SOME Place for Kids at the same location.  The Freddie Mac Foundation recently awarded a $400,000 grant to help Independence Place's younger residents prosper.

"It's alarming that families with children are among the fastest-growing segments of the homeless population. In fact, children represent a quarter of the region's homeless population," said Ralph F. Boyd, Jr., chairman, Freddie Mac Foundation.  "Homeless children face tough challenges.  SOME's programs provide structured recreation as well as educational opportunities that give these children the opportunity to thrive. Our grant will ensure that SOME's program can grow and be even more effective at helping these vulnerable children succeed."

SOME Place for Kids (SPFK) provides educational activities and structured recreation for children between the ages of eight and 18 residing at Independence Place.  The grant will enable SOME to add a child advocate to the organization's Family Services program and two part-time staff to the SPFK program. The child advocate will focus on social and academic goals in younger children, and on college and career objectives for older children.  The two part-time staff members will work with students to help them develop socially and improve academically, and provide teen workshops that foster positive self-esteem.

"Independence Place and SOME Place for Kids create a wonderful, stable environment for families.  With the Freddie Mac Foundation grant, we are expanding current services to better help parents and children reach their life's goals," said Father John Adams, SOME president. "This investment in our residents will surely increase the stability of these families and allow them to move toward self-sufficiency."

SOME's mission is to help the poor and homeless in the nation's capital by meeting the daily needs of the people it serves with food, clothing and health care. Additionally, the organization works to break the cycle of homelessness by offering services, such as affordable housing, job training, addiction treatment, and counseling, to the poor, the elderly and individuals with mental illness.

Family homelessness has become a serious and growing issue in the Washington, DC region. Although most families do not remain homeless for long, the experience can be devastating and traumatizing, increasing the likelihood that families will dissolve.  Homeless children are also more likely to be placed in foster care, are less healthy, experience disruptions in schooling, and are more likely to have developmental delays than poor, housed children.

Funding transitional housing programs and supportive services that create stable, healthy environments for homeless children and families is an important way that the Freddie Mac Foundation is helping these families and their children to be more self-sufficient and independent.  Everyday, the Freddie Mac Foundation works to increase family stability and strengthen communities by providing funds for a variety of nonprofit organizations serving children and their families.  Over the past 15 years, the Foundation has invested more than $200 million, bettering the lives of more than 1.7 million children.

For more information on the Freddie Mac Foundation, go to http://www.freddiemacfoundation.org/, and for more on SOME go to http://www.some.org/.

Created by Freddie Mac in 1991, the Freddie Mac Foundation is dedicated to creating hope and opportunity for children and their families. As the largest corporate funder in the Washington, DC metropolitan area, Freddie Mac and the Freddie Mac Foundation have invested nearly $280 million in organizations serving the community. http://www.freddiemacfoundation.org/ 

DATASOURCE: Freddie Mac Foundation



CONTACT:  Shawn Flaherty of Freddie Mac Foundation, [phone]



Web site:  http://www.freddiemac.com/

http://www.freddiemacfoundation.org/

http://www.some.org/

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