Heart Change Ministries

Approximately 55 families, accounting for 126 children, were served through Heart Change women's programming in 2023 with god's transforming word, life skills training and discipleship/mentoring. These women and children, all living below the poverty line, received lunch either two days a week or three days each week on mondays, wednesdays, and thursdays depending on their class schedules. In addition, they received parenting instruction; biblical instruction to discover god's design for them as women, mothers and members of their community; and life skills education, which includes time management, financial stewardship, health and hygiene and work ethic. Four women pursuing their ged or high school diplomas were tutored in math and english to prepare them for their exams. We assisted women who were homeless in securing safe housing. Volunteers gave of their own time and resources to provide transportation and other physical assistance such as food, clothing, diapers, baby needs and household needs. Mother's university is a semester long intensive program of discipleship and Change. Five women graduated in 2023. Six women participated in the gift of work initiative. Approximately 85 volunteers helped with our programs in 2023.

Food: in 2023, we fed approximately 3925 children's breakfast snacks and 5445 lunches for all. Much of the food we serve is donated; however, we do purchase a significant amount of it. We also continued to distribute food to our most food insecure families at the end of each month, focusing on protein, dairy, and fruits and vegetables. On average we are distributing food to 9 families per month.

Our programs include a pre-school educational program for children ages 0 to 5. We served approximately 40 pre-school children over the course of 2020, plus an additional 40 grade school children in the summer months and school vacation weeks. Our goal is to prepare our pre-school children for their academic journey so that they enter kindergarten on par with or ahead of their classmates who have benefitted from pre-school experiences. Specific learning objectives are: appropriate social behavior, develop listening skills, follow instructions, fine motor skills, large motor skills, letters, colors, numbers, understanding the concept of being asked a question and answering a question and building vocabulary. In the summer of 2023, we continued to support our high school aged boys with developing future vision for their lives post high school providing significant experiences and field to expose them to a wide range of opportunities for work/careers as well as a college campus visit to connect them with an advisor, breakdown fears of the unknown and help them see that college could be a reality for them. During the fall semester of 2023, we piloted an intensive parenting course, invested moms, with one first time mother and her baby. This mom was highly traumatized as a child, not raised by her mother and came into motherhood with virtually no role models or advance knowledge of childhood development. This course is designed to promote and teach healthy attachment, prevent trauma and foster intentional parenting for healthy brain development during the first three years of life. We also piloted a new social enterprise which will allow us to employ more women earlier in their Heart Change journey. Three women are currently participating in that pilot.