For the Hope Partnership is a nonprofit working with Atlantans who are experiencing homelessness or chronic poverty. The main program of FTHP is a Saturday hot breakfast, which it has been doing for more than 10 years.
“Every Saturday morning for 14 years, we have hosted 150-plus friends on the street with a hot breakfast, some conversation and an occasional hand up to essential services when they say they are ready,” said Bill Sutton, a FTHP volunteer since 2012 and current chairman of the board of directors.
When the coronavirus pandemic made those Saturday morning breakfasts dangerous, FTHP partnered with Partners For Home, Lady T’s Homeless Ministry and provided volunteers and other resources to support Proof Of The Pudding as they delivered 1,200-1,500 daily meals.
“By June, 2020, we returned to breakfast service – not cooking and serving to large gatherings, but delivering bagged meals at stops along two different routes in and around downtown Atlanta,” said Sutton.
In 2020 FTHP delivered more than 10,000 meals throughout the Old Fourth Ward and its Edgewood service area, as well as Courtland Avenue, Little Five Points, Candler Park and Woodruff Park. FTHP has now returned to its usual Saturday morning breakfasts on Edgewood Avenue in the Old Fourth Ward.
“COVID forced us to pause and then pivot our core breakfast feeding activity. It also spurred us to examine what we do and why. That led to expanding our mission to go ‘beyond breakfast,’” said Sutton. “This shifts the emphasis from a free meal to the larger effort to build on equality, trust and a shared hope for the future. As our new tagline puts it: ‘Breaking bread. Making friends. Building bridges.’”
Who’s helping?
For the Hope Partnership
Services: Weekly Saturday breakfast service from 6:20 - 8:30am on Edgewood Avenue in the Old Fourth Ward, with hand up to essential services available.
How to help: Find out how to volunteer at fthp.org/contact-us/
Where to donate: Donations accepted at fthp.org
If you are involved in or know of an organization working to bring relief to the Atlanta community during the coronavirus pandemic OR you are with an organization with supplies that you don’t know where to donate, please email us at Shannon.n.Dominy@gmail.com.
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