We had a blast kicking off our 2022 Annual Meeting & celebrating GRIP’s 50th anniversary of serving the City of Richmond and the West County area! No worries if you missed out, we made sure to highlight some key points for you. Firstly, we’d like to thank our generous donors, our magnificent volunteers, and our dedicated employees – without you, there would be no GRIP.
We had the pleasure of spotlighting a surprise celebrity guest: ABC7 Anchor, Ama Daetz! Ama led us through an insightful interview with Tianna Hicks – a former GRIP resident and mother to NFL 1st round draft pick Najee Harris. We are so honored that Tianna shared some of her experiences struggling with homelessness as a mother of five, and she offered words of motivation to others who find themselves where she once stood.
Tianna also happens to be one of our newly approved board members that we’d like to welcome, along with Fayza Ayyad, Winfred Alon Mitchell, and Patrick Sanders. We are so happy to have them take the next steps in meeting our new mission statement: “GRIP provides a safe & nourishing place that helps transform those who are unsheltered and in need move toward self-sufficiency.” As support for GRIP has grown, we’d like to channel that growth into improving our services and meeting goals aligned with increasing our professionalism. Some of these goals include:
- Hiring a rock star Executive Director
- Creating strategic plans with long term vision
- Expanding access to our affordable housing units
- Improving volunteer management and online scheduling through a new tracking system “Salesforce”
- Improving communications through social media and newsletters
- Improving and utilizing data to guide future action plans
Aside from our exciting new goals, we also want to acknowledge the tremendous impact GRIP has made on our community over the past year of 2021:
- 120 shelter residents
- 56,000 in-house meals
- 2,719 outreach meals
- 571 CARE Center clients
- 4,936 mail service units
- 1,376 showers
Our COVID-19 responses include implementing new safety protocols, offering bagged lunches, and reduced shelter capacity.
We look forward to continuing to think of new ways to improve our services and uplift our community. If you have any suggestions or interest in volunteering with us, please contact us: [email protected]. We can’t wait to see what this year brings!
