Philanthropy Today
Philanthropy Today
Center of Hope Ministry on the GMCF Community Hour Show Episode - 205
The Center of Hope Ministry serves Manhattan's homeless population as a warming shelter, providing dignity and safety during the harshest winter months. This volunteer-run organization now offers nightly cots, meals, and life-changing support to up to 30 guests.
• 100% volunteer-operated with working board members covering overnight shifts
• Recently moved from Vineyard Church to First Congregational Church downtown for better accessibility
• Remained open 24/7 during a severe winter storm despite volunteer shortages
• Community partnerships include Dara's providing breakfast sandwiches, support from Chick-fil-A, and Fort Riley
• Helped a guest named Logan recover from cardiac arrest, who has since been accepted to K-State's anthropology program
• Shelter now serves families with children, requiring more resources and space
• The current goal is to raise funds to hire a part-time overnight facilitator
To support the Center of Hope Ministry, donate through their website at thecenterofhopemhk.com or through the Greater Manhattan Community Foundation.
Foundation.
Philanthropy Today is brought to you by the Greater Manhattan Community Foundation. In this episode we feature a recently broadcast segment of the GMCF Community Hour as heard on NewsRadio KMAN. The GMCF Community Hour here on NewsRadio KMAN, segment number two on this Monday, and we're going to be visiting with Angela Stoutenberg, who is the VP and Director of Operations and the Lifeblood of Center of Hope Ministry.
Speaker 1:I don't know about lifeblood, oh, okay, well maybe that's a little bit of a stretch, but you definitely bring a lot of charm and excitement to what you're doing there at Center of Hope Ministry.
Speaker 2:There's a lot of exciting things about it, so I definitely feel like that's probably how I feel.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. Well, let's kind of give us an idea of what Center of Hope Ministry does.
Speaker 2:Well, center of Hope Ministry is a ministry that focuses on our homeless population. A ministry that focuses on our homeless population, more so during the wintertime. Obviously, we focus on the wintertime because we are a warming shelter for the homeless not just the homeless, but anybody that just needs a warm place to sleep at night. So even if your heat has gone out in your trailer or your home, sometimes it gets colder inside than it is outside if you don't have that heat provided. So we're a place that people can come and stay warm.
Speaker 1:And this is not anything that just happens in a very clandestine way.
Speaker 2:No, there's a lot of work that goes behind it. A lot of work that goes behind it, a lot of collaborating, a lot of collaborating. Which is great that we have the community involved in this, that it's spaces at different churches, so we've collaborated with churches and then also with the community in itself having volunteers, soldiers on Fort Riley. Obviously with GMCF, because we're under GMCF. So a lot of different organizations Chick-fil-A supports us, the Foundation Gym supports us A lot of different entities in the community are there for us.
Speaker 1:You had a pretty good match day, didn't you?
Speaker 2:We had an amazing match day. I would definitely have to say.
Speaker 1:Because you're 100% funded by donations.
Speaker 2:Yes, we are. So because of that, and because we're a fairly new organization, only a few years old, every dollar, every penny counts for us, because we have started out with just a little bit. I mean, starting in 2024, we had $40 in our bank account. Whoa, we had $40 in our bank account.
Speaker 1:Sounds like you're a radio person.
Speaker 2:And we far exceeded that to get us through the year. Of course, volunteers were very helpful.
Speaker 1:You don't have any paid staff, do you?
Speaker 2:We do not. Every single member on our board is a working board member, meaning that we're not just there making votes, but we actually are inside the trenches doing the work as well. Me, as director of operations, I'm basically going in there and covering down whenever we don't have any volunteers, which is going to be through the difficult hours of midnight till 7am when we close, sometimes 3amm till 7 am when we close, and sometimes just on certain weekdays where a lot of people are working and they just can't give up that much time. Jason Stauenberg, who is also my husband, he is our overnight facilitating director, so he really manages those volunteers. He manages the volunteers, makes sure that they're coming through through timeframes, he makes sure that there's backup for that and whatnot.
Speaker 2:And because he's an active duty soldier, sometimes he's not able to be there. Sometimes he's able to be there, usually me and him. We split the hours between us and then me. More so, on the operation side, I'm making sure for people that are sleeping there, our guests, that things are running smoothly inside there. We give them snacks in the morning, we give them coffee Dara's has sponsored us and they give us breakfast sandwiches on the days that certain churches don't provide breakfasts we also have. This year was our first year that we were able to have cots with our sleeping bags and pillows, which gives them a lot of dignity, you know, not having to worry about sleeping on the floor.
Speaker 1:A little bit more comfortable too, I would imagine.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, and having Jeremy on this year has been huge for us being community relations. He's been out there being able to spread the word more about us, and that's part of the reason we were able to get a lot more funding, because we had more visibility, and, of course, we also had more visibility because of the winter storm.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, and we'll talk about that here just a little bit. But you know you had talked about churches. You had started with the basement at the Vineyard Church that's right On Casement Road, yes, and then this year we were able to see you move to the First Congregational. Church which is closer to downtown, closer to the people that are in the need, which I'm sure was a tremendous convenience for them.
Speaker 2:So good, so convenient. We're very thankful and we know that that was just the Lord making sure that was in hand for this crazy winter for them to be able to have quick access to us, because it was a significant, monumental moment of a winter. We haven't seen in a very, very long time. What was hard about before being over at the vineyard? We are very thankful for them because they were the only place that was willing to open their doors for us.
Speaker 2:That first was that we borrowed a little bus from the Morning Star and we would go to the common table dinner. We would go there when the dinner would end, sit there, wait for people to jump on the bus and then drive them over to the location because we were so far away. Now, if they didn't make the bus, they had to make the decision Am I going to stick it out where I'm at for the night or am I going to trek it through the cold and the snow all the way down to Casement Road? What is the decision is the best decision for me to make, and I can't imagine sitting in that situation trying to figure out what direction they're going to go. And I'm sure you know last year we had lost somebody that stuck it out in the night, and that's something we did not want to see. This year, jeremy Harmon was able to just go out there and make sure that we had a spot downtown, and working with First Congregational Church and them opening their doors to us was huge for us.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. What were some of the biggest challenges that you faced earlier this year?
Speaker 2:Oh well, we faced many challenges every year. This year more so it's going to be. It was the volunteers trying to get the volunteers in hand, because us, being a new organization, not a lot of people knew about us organization. Not a lot of people knew about us, unfortunately, but fortunately, because of the storm, we did have more visibility and people realized, wow, where are these people going? And they found out, oh my goodness, through group me chats, group text messages through Facebook group me chats, group text messages through Facebook, through Instagram, through word of mouth. Because of the storm, people were sharing hey, center of Hope needs volunteers, they need volunteers. They have up to 30 people that stay in that shelter.
Speaker 2:And because of that day, a lot of people were missing, because they didn't know that we were going to be open, because typically we only run overnight for somewhere there to sleep. Of course, first Congregational said you can be open the whole winter storm, and so we were. But because it was such a last minute plan, because nothing was planned ahead of time with the city and we didn't know that nothing was going to be covered down, when we realized nothing was going to be covered down, we said, okay, we're going to step in try and get this covered down. It took us about 45 minutes to almost an hour to finally get everything up and going and open for that moment. So from there on, we slowly started getting more and more volunteers.
Speaker 2:Unfortunately, because my husband is active duty in the military, he was gone for about a month and a half and, like I said, usually me and him split the duty of staying overnight at the shelter and we have a child at home as well, so when he was gone, if I didn't have any volunteers, it was just me myself and I.
Speaker 2:So there would be a few days I would go without sleep. But this year's goal was to be open every single night for them, especially on the cold days and I'm sure you remember years before it was 36 degrees or below we would be open because every single member on the board also works a job. Like I said, we're working board members, so on top of jobs, this is what we contribute as well is taking care of this ministry, and for me, spent a lot of time praying it about this year and the Lord said a job's not important, this is what's important. Let's make sure the doors are open every single day. So it was worth it. It definitely was worth it. There was a lot of lives changed this year.
Speaker 1:For those of us that were at the CFAs, the Center for Hope Ministry received a wonderful recognition for the work that you had done during that time frame.
Speaker 2:Surprised us Very, very deserving.
Speaker 1:But you also had a specific story that you were able to tell and we don't have a whole lot of time, but if you can give us just a a quick synopsis of that story, because it's really heartwarming- it really is, and there's so many of them, but this one, obviously God wanted to highlight that night One of our guests named Logan.
Speaker 2:He had a contract job with the hotel and he was there serving that night and when I walked in he was the first person that I saw Logan.
Speaker 2:And Logan has an amazing story with us. Basically, he came to us the night of the winter storm and he had actually stopped breathing, heart stopped beating, and that night emergency was not running around town because the snow was too much and cars were crashing and it was not good for them either. But you know, god made a way for EMS to make their way over to us. They did some hard sternum rubs on him, brought him back to life for us and ever since then he was staying at the shelter with us and he is a very shy gentleman, he doesn't speak much, but he slowly started to open up in the middle of the night and speak with us, talk about goals. You know he never had anything like that in mind before. So eventually, working with Be Able and us because we're pretty much partners working with the same people he was able to apply to K-State and he has been accepted to the anthropology department and very recently I was able to help him get a full-time job. Now, over at the Dragon Buffet with the Fang family.
Speaker 1:You got a pretty special dude there. Amazing, there were a number of tears in the audience when we shared that story. It shows the impact when you can save lives in that manner. It really gives you much more relevance.
Speaker 2:It saved his life and his life was changed because of it.
Speaker 1:He had a new perspective on life, that there's things that I can do with my life you know, and we kind of threw this together pretty quickly to get him up on the stage to share his story, and he was just right there, I'm like going.
Speaker 2:hey, we got to get him up on the stage to share his story, and he was just right there I'm like going hey, we got to get you up here, dude, so quickly.
Speaker 1:What can we do to help?
Speaker 2:One way to help, as we spoke about before, is we are 100% running off of donations and this year's goal is to be able to hire an overnight facilitator. Goal is to be able to hire an overnight facilitator so we have them at least somebody part-time, so that we're not completely relying on volunteers. Now. Our volunteers love our organization and they love interacting with everybody staying at the shelter, but we also don't want to be exhausted as board members. We want to continue to grow this ministry, so we're trying to hire someone right now. So fundraising and getting those donations is going to be huge to us.
Speaker 2:You can find us on Facebook and donate to us there. You can also go to our website, which is going to be the Center of Hope Ministry, mhkcom. You can also go to GMCF's website and find us there and donate there as well. So those things are big helps to us. We also are growing and growing and more and more people are finding out about us. So more and more people are sleeping with us, including families. We saw families and children come stay with us this year. So having enough cots, having enough space for everybody, is huge for us. So the donations are huge for us.
Speaker 1:Angela Stoutenberger is her name. She is with the Center of Hope Ministry. Thecenterofhopemhkcom is the website. Always a delight to have you in the show. Thank you, dave. When we come back we're going to be focusing on no Stone Unturned. The foundation has three guests that are going to be joining us via Zoom and they got some great things going on. As the GMCF Community Hour continues here on NewsRad.