Our Daily Rest Christmas Report
December 18th 2009

Dear supporters of Our Daily Rest:

Oconee County’s first homeless shelter has been open for four months since operations began on August 17th of this year. During that time we have admitted 78 persons into our program. Of that total, 51 or 65% were men, 16 or 21% were women and 11 or 14% were children. The average stay at our facility has been 34 days. We have discharged 54 persons and have 24 current clients. Of the 54 persons discharged our staff has rated them in the following groups:

1. Substantially improved, 11 persons or 20%. These people have been very successful in finding and holding employment, have found new housing, have avoided addictions, have a spiritual connection, and have moved forward with their lives. They are solid graduates of Our Daily Rest.

2. Improved, 15 persons or 28%. These people, while making progress in many areas, are stll struggling with issues that may hold them back from success. Many of these folks have returned to stay with family or friends.

3. No improvement, 28 persons or 52%. These people while temporarily benefiting from the safety, shelter, food, clothing, and counseling offered by Our Daily Rest, have shown little or no progress. Many of these people struggle with addiction and legal issues and have shown little effort in improving their lives. We pray that their experience with us will make a difference in the future.

Our Case Managers have been working hard to improve the effectiveness of our clients. We now do a thorough review of identification documents, employment skills, education needs, social service eligibility, as well as medical needs and housing needs for each client. We then develop a program specific to that client’s needs and follow up regularly on their progress. If the clients give the program a decent effort, they can make great strides toward achieving their goals.

Our facility continues to run smoothly with the help of a trained staff, clients and volunteers. Our staff provides security and transportation, our clients keep the place neat and clean, our volunteers help with cooking supper and mentoring and we have been blessed with numerous donations for food and clothing from the community. We have recently increased our capacity to our women’s wing by adding five more beds. We can now handle 20 men and 15 women and small children. We have also set up a computer center for our clients with on-line access for job search, job applications, housing searches and other research.

Beginning this December we began our emergency shelter program for overnight emergency shelter when the temperature drops to freezing and below. We are able to accommodate 10 additional persons in the front of our facility on mats for one night. Beginning at 6:00PM we offer them a hot supper that evening and a hot breakfast before departing the next morning at 8:00AM

The Brooks Center in Clemson has been kind enough to offer free tickets for our clients to some performances that are not sold out. We have already taken two groups there and will make more performances this winter. This opportunity came forward as a by-product of the great fundraiser that Soluna held at the Brooks Center for Our Daily Rest in October.

We have also started to take furniture donations to assist clients with furnishing their own apartments when they graduate. If you or your contacts have any furniture or appliances that you would like to donate just call our office and we will make arrangements to receive them. We have secured two outside storage areas for your donations.

We estimate that 70% of our clients take part in religious activities with local churches on Sundays and Wednesdays. Many churches provide regular transportation along with ODR staff members who take clients to church regularly. We also have clients involved in Bible Study with support from local clergy for evening programs. This component has made the difference in many attitudes of our clients and has moved them closer to success.

This holiday season we have volunteered to ring the bell for the Salvation Army at Big Lots. Our Daily Rest clients are providing ringers from 10:00AM to 8:00PM for the period of Thanksgiving through Christmas. We also provided assistance to our friends at Our Daily Bread to Feed the 5000 on Thanksgiving. Community Service is now part of our program.

With Medical care we have received some great help from local professionals. Many of our clients have received dental care from Dr. Bryson in Walhalla, medical care from Dr. White in Seneca, vision care from Dr. Forgnoni in Pendleton, and surgery from Dr. Clayton in Easley. This has been a great addition to our normal support at Rosa Clark and Oconee Medical Center.

Our staff is encouraged by the first four months of service to the community and look forward to coming year. We have received a steady flow of applicants and have developed a waiting list of clients on numerous occasions. We expect the need to remain steady next year. Our clients are members of our community who desperately need our support to obtain even the most basic necessities in life that we too often take for granted. What we need most of all, is the financial support of the community to maintain our operations, programs, and pay the bills. Please consider a financial contribution to Our Daily Rest for 2010 so that we can maintain this much needed Ministry.

Regards,
Steven Smith
Our Daily Rest