Hope’s Corner 2022 Annual Report

Hope’s Corner 2021 Annual Operations Report

Hope’s Corner, Inc. has been serving free, nutritious meals to homeless, low income and vulnerable residents from Mountain View and surrounding communities since 2011. On January 27th 2021, Hope’s Corner marked a milestone by serving the 100,000th meal. By year end 134,046 cumulative meals had been served.

As Covid-19 continued to impact the community throughout 2021, Hope’s Corner continued to provide vital services and friendly faces (even if those faces did continue to be covered by a mask) throughout the year. Meals continued to be served in a “to-go” format on both Wednesdays and Saturdays and were accessible by either walk-up or drive-thru options for the entire year. Delivery of meals to the Mountain View SafePark program continued on both Wednesdays and Saturdays and we continued to provide the hot meal program for the Day Worker Center of Mountain View on Saturdays. The laundry and shower program was re opened in March after revamping the policies and procedures to ensure the facilities were compliant with all Covid-19 Health and Safety requirements. On top of our regular program, we offered additional services including hygiene kits, clothing, portable chargers, Covid-19 vaccine clinics, flu shot clinics, haircuts, holiday toys, gift cards, coffee bar, and much more.

Meal Program Results

Hope’s Corner volunteers prepared and cooked healthy meals from scratch in the onsite kitchen every week during 2021. On Saturdays, the meal program provided a hot meal in a takeout box with 4-5 hot items which included protein, eggs, potatoes/rice, and fresh hot vegetables. On Wednesdays, the hot meal included 1-2 hot items. All meals were, complimented by a bag of cold foods like green salad, fresh fruit, cheese, and shelf stable snacks like protein bars, fruit cups, crackers, nut butters, canned meat, cereals, nuts, milk or juice.

Hope’s Corner prepared hot meals twice a week, every week, for a total of 104 meal service days in 2021. In total, 36,853 meals were prepared and served by Hope’s Corner in 2021. Meals were served on Wednesdays 8:00am-9:00am and Saturdays 8:00am-10:00am.

• 25,496 meals were served to guests who came to the onsite program at Hope’s Corner. • 7,333 meals were provided to residents of the Mountain View SafePark program residing in their car, RV or van in nearby parking lots.

• 3,870 meals were provided to the Mountain View Day Worker center • 100 meals were provided to LifeMoves new HomeKey program when they first opened in September 2021.

2021 Meal Program On-Site Guest Demographics

In total, 1,734 individuals came to Hope’s Corner for a hot meal in 2021. The majority of the meal program guests live in Mountain View (63.5%) and Sunnyvale (14.5%) with a few coming from various other near-by cities. Just over half (58%) of the guests reported they have permanent shelter, while 21% reported they live in a vehicle or RV, 13% live outside and 8% are in a temporary shelter. Youth (children age 17 and under) represented 11% of the guests who received a meal in 2021, and seniors (adults age 60 and over) totaled 42% of meal participants.

HOPE’S CORNER SHOWER AND LAUNDRY PROGRAM

The shower and laundry program was suspended in March 2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The program was re-opened in March 2021 with new policies and procedures to comply with Covid-19 safety guidelines. Some of the additional sanitizing steps to ensure the shower rooms were safe during the pandemic included fogging the shower room between each participant with an anti-viral and allowing the room to air-out for at least 10 minutes between showers. These additional sanitizing steps reduce the number of shower appointments available during a program day, but were necessary to ensure the safety of the shower guests, volunteers and

Hope’s Corner staff. In addition to the revised policies, a dedicated shower and laundry program employee was hired to ensure compliance with all cleaning and sanitizing protocols. The shower and laundry program was reserved for unhoused residents and is offered on Wednesdays 8:30am-12pm and Saturdays 8:30am-2:30pm.

The shower program was offered on 84 days in 2021. In total, 1,019 showers were enjoyed by 154 individuals. Although the program is open to youth, we did not have anyone under 18 years of age participate in the shower program in 2021. The majority of shower participants were adult males (age 18-59) who accounted for 70% of the showers and senior males (age 60+) who utilized 13% of the showers. Shower program participants are offered towels and hygiene supplies for their shower and they can also receive new underclothing, socks, toiletry supplies, clothing, backpacks and shoes if needed.

The laundry program was also offered on 84 days in 2021. In total, 314 loads of laundry were washed and dried for 66 individuals; 43 adult male, 17 adult female, 6 senior male. No youth or senior females participated in the laundry program in 2021. Laundry program participants are allowed one load of laundry per program day.

More than Meals & Showers

As the Covid-19 crisis continued to disrupt lives and make access to services difficult in 2021, Hope’s Corner continued to offer services and activities for our guests. We continued to recruit volunteers to come help provide our guests with free goods and services such as flu shots, Covid vaccines and boosters, Santa Clara County Health services, haircuts, gift cards, custom crafted coffee bar, holiday toys, hygiene supplies including masks and hand sanitizer and clothing.

Hope’s Corner guests also have access to The United Effort Organization, Inc., for those who need help ‘beyond a meal’ every Wednesday and Saturday during the meal program. The United Effort Organization provides personalized, one-on-one assistance by caring volunteers onsite at Hope’s Corner. The volunteers love a challenge and have solved many frustrating situations for individuals who seek assistance. Typical assistance includes access to cell phones, solar power and batteries, help applying for benefits, filing for COVID relief funds, unemployment applications, DMV paperwork, tax return filing, and finding housing and employment.

Happy Holidays!

Although the Covid-19 crisis continued, the generous and tireless Hope’s Corner volunteer elves could not imagine a holiday with festive food and toys. The 2021 holidays were made brighter for 213 families totaling over 700 youth at our annual toy give away. Each family received a $25 Walmart gift card and each child received 3 toys selected by their parent/guardian plus a stuffed animal, book, and stocking stuffers. We also had warm clothing, socks and holiday food items for each family.

Bicycle Program

Hope’s Corner partners with Silicon Valley Bicycle Exchange to keep our guests moving. The program provided 110 bicycles to our guests in 2021. Our dedicated bicycle volunteers ensure the gift of a bike also includes a helmet, lock and lights for safety. In addition, the Bicycle Program provides ongoing simple repairs such as flat tire repairs and brake adjustments. And in 2021, Silicon Valley Bicycle Exchange and Hope’s Corner offered a bike repair workshop onsite at Hope’s Corner for more extensive repairs.

Thank you to the financial donors that made it happen

We received generous donations and grants in 2021 allowing us to meet the needs of our guests throughout the year.

Operating Income* in 2021 totaled $473,901. Funding for the 2021 programs and service provided by Hope’s Corner were funded by:

Individual donations and gifts $300,015
Foundation Grants $100,400
Church gifts $39,038
Stock Donations $19,433
Company Gifts $11,923
Other $3,093

*Operating income excludes non-recurring, non-operating pass-through income in 2021.

Although Covid continued to disrupt lives and the economy, our individual donors opened their wallets in 2021 and donated a record $300,015. Donation sources include direct donations, indirect donations via company matching programs, participation in programs like AmazonSmile, Target Circle, and participation in fundraising events and activities.

Grants were awarded to Hope’s Corner in 2021 to fund specific programs and services. These grants were provided by:

• El Camino Healthcare District $30,000

• The Callison Foundation $20,000

• Los Altos Community Foundation $15,000

• 100 Women Charitable Foundation $10,000

• Emergency Food and Shelter Program $8,000

• Fremont Bank $5,000

• The Dorsey & Whitney Foundation $5,000

• Los Altos Rotary Endowment Fund $3,900

• Sereno Group of Los Altos $2,500

• Los Altos Sunset Rotary Endowment Fund $1,000

The Wednesday Breakfast program at Hope’s Corner is made possible by groups and individuals who donate $600 toward the cost of the food for the meal and provide six to ten volunteers who prepare and serve the meal. Forty-seven of the fifty-two Wednesday breakfast services were sponsored in 2021 generating $28,000 to offset the cost of food. Our sponsors, and the number of meals they sponsored, are:

• Los Altos United Methodist Church - 14 meals

• Highway Community – 13 meals

• Lord’s Grace Christian Church – 6 meals

• Apple & The Hubel family – 5 meals

• Congregation Beth Am – 3 meals

• Red Rock Coffee – 2 meals

• LDS Church – 1 meal

• St Francis High School- 1 meal

• Palo Alto Vineyard Church- 1 meal

• Cooper Park Association 1 meal

And our local businesses helped out too! We received generous donations from our neighbors including BMW of Mountain View, Helmings Auto Repair, Nautilus Ventures Management, Simplesoft, Inc., GSD Solutions

Thank you to the donors who provided the supplies that made our program successful in 2021.

Hope’s Corner received thousands of pounds of in-kind donations in 2021 to keep our programs running. Donations included: food, drinks, clothing, shoes, backpacks, toiletries, decorated lunch bags, masks, batteries, toys, bicycles, bike locks, lights, helmets, gift cards, hand knitted hats & scarves, solar lanterns, cleaning supplies, and much more. Our largest in-kind donor is Second Harvest Silicon Valley Food Bank. Second Harvest provided 55,630 pounds of food in 2021. In addition to Second Harvest, we received food donations from A La Carte, Food Runners, Village Harvest, Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, Nation a Charity League Orchard Valley Chapter, and many individual donors.

Expenses

Hope’s Corner makes a deliberate effort to use funding for direct program service expenses. In 2021 Hope’s Corner operating expenses* totaled $268,619 of which $205,901 (77%) was the direct cost for the meal program (food, food packaging, facility rent, utilities, cooking &

operating equipment, janitorial, truck expense) and $27,707 (10%) was the direct cost of the shower/laundry program (utilities, supplies, program staff). Administrative costs totaled $23,732 (9%) and includes insurance, office supplies, technology expense, professional services (tax filing, consultants, etc) taxes and fees. Costs for the bicycle program totaled $3,334 (1%). Costs for the Holiday Toy Drive $7945 (3%).

*Operating expenses excludes non-recurring non-operating pass-through expenses in 2021.

Thank you to the volunteers who made it all happen!

Hope’s Corner employs only two part-time employees (Program Coordinator and Program Assistant). Therefore, almost everything that happens at Hope’s Corner is done by volunteers. Volunteers logged over 10,000+ hours of program service assistance on site at Hope’s Corner in 2021 centered in the following areas:

• Wednesday food program volunteers: 1,800 hours

• Wednesday SafePark food distribution volunteers: 300 hours

• Friday food preparation volunteers: 2,500 hours

• Saturday food program volunteers: 4,800 hours

• Saturday SafePark food distribution volunteers: 500 hours

• Shower and laundry program volunteer hours: 250 hours

• Bicycle program volunteer hours: 200 hours

In addition to program volunteers, we enjoy many other onsite volunteer time that make our guests’ experience at Hope’s Corner special. These volunteers include barbers, hair stylists, flu shot clinics, covid vaccine clinics, musical entertainers, holiday events, battery programs, surveys, translation, basement organization, and one-on-one services provided by United Effort.

But wait, there is more! There are countless more work hours donated off-site including lunch bag decorating, toiletry kit assembly, supply drives, fundraisers, labeling to-go boxes, sewing masks, hat and scarf knitting, website maintenance, newsletters and publications development, and so much more.