St. Anthony Parish participates in the Family Promise of Sacramento program. This is an interfaith network of 15 churches that house up to 4 homeless families with children in their empty church buildings at night.
The program includes case managers who work with each family to obtain transitional housing and acquire the skills required to make homelessness less likely to reoccur.
Here at St. Anthony the families stay in our CFF Center where sleeping areas are arranged so that each family has some privacy in a CFF classroom. The families arrive at about 5:15 p.m. and are picked up at 7:00 a.m. the next morning. We do this for a week at a time, 4 times a year. All families have received background checks, TB tests, extensive interviews and are drug tested.
This effort requires about 50-60 volunteers during our hosting week. Volunteer opportunities include setting up rooms, providing a part of dinner, being present after dinner to help entertain children, etc., sleeping overnight in the CFF Center, washing linens at the end of the week, and transporting the small Family Promise trailer to the next church at the end of the week. Financial donations are always appreciated to pay for the cost of breakfast and sack lunch supplies. For more information about Family Promise go to www.sacfamilypromise.org.