To volunteer with Hope Roswell, go to www.hoperoswell.org.
Despite the heavy rains, Hope Roswell held its annual Roswell Day of Hope at Mimosa Elementary School on Saturday. The annual family event, in its fifth year, helped over 1,200 people in the local community with various services throughout the day.
“This is one of our biggest events of the year,” said event leader Kris Eldridge. “Hope Roswell serves the low-income families of the area and [at Day of Hope], we get to provide them with services and also some family fun.”
The day included medical and dental services, bike raffles for the kids, haircuts, professional photographers for family portraits, and job search information along with free lunch and entertainment. Also, this year, 1,000 pairs of feet were washed and adorned with new shoes by Samaritan’s Feet, a nonprofit that helps men, women, and children across the United States and around the world in an effort to help the nearly 300 million people who go without shoes each day.
“The children and families are so happy and realize that people care about them and their well-being,” said Samaritan’s Feet representative Whitney Saucedo. The nonprofit aims to create a presence in Atlanta and with the help of volunteers, it distributed 8,000 pairs of shoes to needy families during the NCAA Final Four weekend.
Six-hundred volunteers made the day memorable for the families that were served by Roswell Day of Hope. “We need volunteers throughout the year for our various events,” added Eldridge. For example, this summer, the nonprofit will host a five-week sports camp which will coincide with a back-to-school event where, “we would love people to volunteer as coaches or help out in any way possible to make the camp a success,” he said.
For the first time, the event was moved to Mimosa Elementary School from its usual space, Roswell City Hall. The idea was to move it closer to an area of need— the area has about 21 percent poverty and over 90 percent of the students at the school are on free or reduced lunches.
“Our families know this space and they know that the people here care for them,” said Principal Lynn Johnson. “This also became easier as many of our families don’t have cars. It has been a great day to see everyone come out, have some fun, get help from resources, and get a feeling of hope.”
In other news: The Northeast Atlanta Metro Association of REALTORS raised over $3, 800 for Homes for Our Troops. The beneficiary was Cpl. Tony Mullis of Hawkinsville, Ga. The money helped build a custom home to accommodate his injuries sustained while serving in Afghanistan. Homes for Our Troops is a nonprofit that assists severely injured veterans and their immediate families by raising donations of money, building materials, professional labor and coordinate the process of building a home that provides maximum freedom of movement and the ability to live more independently.
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