According to a study conducted by students from university of Georgia, out of every 6500 families in America one family is at risk of not finding a hot meal for a day or two. However, there is a non-governmental organization (NGO) located in Savannah, Georgia where we deal with issues concerning providing meals to homeless, needy, elderly, and hungry individual within the community. Beacon of hope (BOH) is a place where needy individuals can come, have a meal, and socialize with other individuals from all occupations. Each year, Beacon of hope provides meals to over 41,000 families spread across the state. That is, street families, needy and elderly who cannot afford a meal during hard economic times. Beacon Seeks to serve people in America today who cannot afford to feed their families for a whole year.
To begin with, there are families in America today living under $15 a day. This simply means that such family can only afford two meals a day considering that these families have other bills to settle. This, suggest that there has to be a place where families can acquire meals and that is places like Beacon of Hope. Good examples of such places are the Beacon of hope and World hope where meals are offered at absolutely free of charge. Beacon of hope understands that people face financial constraints because the economy is not supportive as it used to be, people need financial assistance, without this, the American family would go hungry. Beacon of hope depends on volunteer to offer services but need financial assistance from well-wishers to keep the center moving. The center needs money to purchase foodstuff, utensils maintenance cost and thus to call for the center management to write proposals to corporations to join in donating to the center in order for the feeding program to go on. This provides Beacon of hope with a financial challenge, though it has been fought up to date. Normally, the Centre receives donations from well-wishers that are channeled towards feeding the needy in the society (Mooney, 2009).
The majority of the people who are served by the Beacon of Hope Centre are the elderly, homeless, disabled, needy women and children. Over the last two years of our operations, we have been able to observe and collect a data of the people who visit the center. Not all people who came to the center because they lack food, some of them want to live a social life. Their friends and family members often visit the elderly people who have lived more than ten years of the retirement age at the center. The center is a friendly place for such people and they can have the meal while socializing with other Americans. Other beneficiaries of the Centre are the single mothers. These are families where the breadwinner “father” neglected the family and therefore the mother is forced to take care of all other bills. The Centre caters for the needs of such families. The other bunch of beneficiary is the homeless people. People who live in the streets and have no place where they can eat or prepare a meal to eat (Ringen, 2006).
Beacon of Hope has developed a strategy that helps the center to keep moving towards its goals. Our plan involves the decision-making and steps towards the way beneficiaries get aid within and outside the center. The most obvious is identifying the needy people in the community. This goes hand in hand with organization mission, vision and core values. The main mission of the center was to ensure that every person has access to a hot meal whenever and wherever he or she is. Therefore, identify of beneficiary begins with the homeless in the streets who cannot afford a place to cook or a house to prepare a meal simply because they cannot pay the house rent. Additionally, if we identify a person to be elderly, single mother, homeless and a child he or she automatically qualifies to access any program that is undertaken by the beacon of hope (Thakur, 2004).
In addition, the program has been of benefit to many Americans who cannot afford to cook or warm their food. The program has many benefits including taking care of the homeless and needy people in the society. For example, if our volunteers identify any person under that category, the person is enrolled in our program and is rescued from succumbing to death due to hunger.
In conclusion, the center is the right place where donors and well-wishers can put their trust because our services are offered at no cost. Therefore, all the donations are well utilized in helping the intended people. The mission and vision of the organization cannot be achieved without the help of stable individual. There is the need for a stable individual to be educated on the need of taking care of the well-being of their neighbors. I believe this is the way forward and it is very important for every member of the public to understand the importance of organizations like Beacon of hope.
References
Mooney, L. A., Knox, D., & Schacht, C. (2009). Understanding social problems (6th ed.). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth/Cengage Learning.
Ringen, S. (2006). Fighting poverty: caring for children, parents, the elderly and health. Aldershot: Ashgate.
Thakur, R. C., & Malcontent, P. (2004). From sovereign impunity to international accountability the search for justice in a world of states. Tokyo: United Nations University Press.