February 24, 2025 • 30 mins
“By offering four major areas of support to homeless mothers and their children these families never having to live that way again. Find out how Bridge of Hope does it and why they are so successful.” harrisburg.bridgeofhopeinc.org/
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi, I'm Sylvia Moss and this is Insight, a presentation
of iHeartMedia where we really do care about our local
communities and all our listeners who live here. You know,
when most of us think about somebody who's homeless, we
picture maybe an older man with tattered, dirty clothes, lost
wandering around. Might even see a picture of sleeping on
(00:21):
a bench. But yeah, that's a pretty good picture. That's
what most of us think. There are a lot of
men out there that are on the streets, and a
lot of us have seen them. However, the true image
of homelessness is mirrored in the faces of every part
of our society. While researching the homeless and how they
end up that way, I was shocked to find out
(00:41):
that fifty percent, fifty percent of all homeless people in
this country are women with children, with factors that lead
to their circumstances that are different than any others who
are homeless. I wanted to talk more about this and
for people in Central Pennsylvania look around you. Yes, I
can tell you that, believe it or not. Here in
(01:02):
Central Pa there are many women and children who are
out in the streets and they're homeless. Well, I accidentally
came across an organization that we're going to talk about today,
and I'm really happy about it because what they do
is they change the lives of these homeless women and
their children in so many ways. And it's not a handout.
(01:23):
And my guest today, I will tell you it's not
a handout. It's a handout. You're going to be amazed
and hopefully choose to support them with us. From the
organization known as the Bridge of Hope in Harrisburg is
their lead case manager, Heidi cardinist Weaver. Heidi, thanks so
much for coming. And I had no idea you guys
are out there, and honest goodness, I had no idea
(01:46):
there were women and children out on the streets. I
figured that when they're in that situation that they usually
end up at a shelter. But where your whole focus
is is not to get them away from a shelter,
and you're not You're not a temporary shelter. You're there
to get their lives in orders. So let me ask
(02:07):
you this. When I mentioned, you know, we think about
a man out on the street, how did their issue,
how do the way we think about homeless people in general,
how did they actually differ from moms with their kids
out in the street. I mean, what are they coming?
They can't be coming from the same direction the same place, right.
Speaker 2 (02:27):
Oftentimes moms who are struggling with homelessness are they were
previously perhaps okay, maybe they were had a partner, maybe
they had a family member they were staying with. But
some set of circumstances it starts to make them vulnerable.
Maybe it's a child who's sick, or they are their
(02:49):
job is barely enough to cover the bills, and then
an emergency comes along and just takes their feet out
from under them. So they are keeping their families, they're
keeping their homes, but they're they're fragile. They have a
very delicate set of logistics that can't take major emergencies
very easily.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
Oh wow, So let me ask you this. They come from,
where are they referred? Do they walk in? How does
one if you see someone out there and know the situation,
how do you get them into bridge A hope?
Speaker 2 (03:20):
Yeah, Our website has a tab that they can click
on for help. There are local agencies that have our
name now and so when someone calls maybe two one
one for housing assistants, our name is one of the
names that comes up as potential assistance, and sometimes they
get referred by friends who know of us. Local churches
(03:40):
sometimes have moms groups or they keep an eye out
for the single moms in their churches, and if that
church already knows who we are, maybe already has volunteers
working for us, then they'll sometimes refer to us.
Speaker 1 (03:51):
Your organization was started by a couple of women, right, yes.
Speaker 3 (03:57):
Thirty years ago. They decided.
Speaker 2 (04:00):
They knew that it wasn't just finances that moms needed,
but relationship, so they they did something very very unique
and created that.
Speaker 1 (04:09):
Okay, we're going to talk about that. Typically the women
do they if they are in abusive relationships? What what
state of mind are they in when they commit or
even even having to to live somewhere and have to
leave and go to a should and go someplace else.
What's is the state or their mental health or their
emotional help.
Speaker 2 (04:30):
They have so much on their shoulders. They've got so
much anxiety from what's the next logistic going to be?
Speaker 3 (04:36):
Are my kids going to be?
Speaker 1 (04:37):
Okay?
Speaker 2 (04:37):
Where am I going to put them? They've just got
so much pressure and fear trying to solve these really
basic you know, keep my family safe type questions, not
to mention they recovering from the relational stuff that we're
all recovering from something that way.
Speaker 3 (04:55):
There, they've got that double duty.
Speaker 1 (04:58):
And what has been the impact on kids? Are they
typical younger kids that come with the moms.
Speaker 2 (05:03):
The average age for our kids is eight. Okay, so
we take a mom with any minor child, so they
can be seventeen or they might be babies.
Speaker 1 (05:11):
But they've seen things that they I don't want to
say normal, because nobody's normal, but the average child that
there doesn't see they've got to carry that with them.
Speaker 3 (05:20):
Yeah, there are kids. I'm so proud of them.
Speaker 2 (05:23):
There are kids living in shelters with their mom right
now who are getting straight a's in school, and they're
fighting so hard to just stay close with their mom
and be a family kind of under any circumstance. And
they're troopers, but they worry about their mom. They also
trust their mom to come through for them, and they
(05:45):
deal with all the same anxiety. But they're little and
don't have that, Sure, they don't charity to handle it.
Speaker 1 (05:50):
Sure. Well, you know what I'm going to talk about
that super power that you're alluding to earlier because I
think it's really great and oh boy, if a woman
wants to get in, there are there any praise prerequisites
to getting into your program? I know they have to
fill out a form online, but is it income based?
I mean, how do you judge who's a part of
the program who's not.
Speaker 2 (06:11):
Yeah, we try to have as few barriers as possible.
We want to be able to help as many people
as possible. There are a couple of logistics. First, we
service York, Cumberland and Dolphin County, so they do have
to live nearby. They also need to have one minor
child in living with them in the home, okay. And
then lastly, we focus on single moms. So if it's
(06:35):
a couple, we would refer them to somebody who services families.
Right if they have another adult in the home who
can help bay bills, we would probably move on to
a mom who's totally on her own.
Speaker 1 (06:48):
Okay, that sounds good. So let me ask. I know
you're biting it the bit to talk about the relationships
you this is so cool, because how do we exist?
We keep on talking about takes a village. It takes it,
darn it. It does take availity. And you guys make
that part of it's the core of your organization, makes
it so successful, tell us about it.
Speaker 2 (07:10):
Yeah, So they when they founded Bridge of Hope, they
knew that relationship was at the core of what love
and family and stability needs. So they take six to
ten volunteers and they train them cultural training, you know,
respect of respect of the individual. They just they just
(07:34):
make sure that the volunteers are ready to support mom
in whatever her goals are. And then those volunteers are
matched with a mom and they stay with her through
the whole program, which is eighteen months to two years,
and they can be they can be any kind of
friends she needs them to be. So if she needs logistics,
if she needs a shoulder crown, if she wants to
(07:55):
if she needs dinner out, and she needs some sanity,
they become whatever is and then they become social capital.
Speaker 1 (08:02):
Where did they come from? They come from.
Speaker 2 (08:04):
The churches that we go to and who decide to
support us. So we can go to churches or small
groups and speak to them and then those volunteers kind
of feel that nudge they want to be there for someone,
and usually they're friends with each other. They maybe already
are in a group together or church together, and they
(08:25):
decide to team up and all focus on one mom together.
Speaker 1 (08:29):
I would think they everybody brings something special about themselves
that they can offer. Is that true?
Speaker 2 (08:36):
It is so beautiful I've watched I try not to
coordinate eat too much.
Speaker 1 (08:42):
Who becomes matched with who? That's a God thing.
Speaker 2 (08:45):
God knows who needs who. Sometimes details that I never
knew about a volunteer will come up after they've met mom.
For example, a mom loses a parent, Well, I match
them up, and weeks or months later I find out
that volunteer lost a part as well. And now these
wonderful touch points and connecting points, and that just keeps
(09:06):
happening week after month, and it's great.
Speaker 1 (09:09):
So talk about divining intervens about it. So these are
people who they're from church, and they're willing to be
trained to help these mothers. Tell me about some of
the specific areas, like you were talking a little bit
about a couple of months ago, the different areas, like
how they would help help these Are they all trained
the same? And how do you qualify to be a volunteer?
Speaker 2 (09:31):
Yeah, the very first thing is we do background checks
and fingerprints make sure everybody's safe, and then they do
five hours of online training that comes from our national organization.
They've developed that and they teach. It's a lot of
cultural humility training.
Speaker 1 (09:47):
And people don't know what can you explain the definition
of that?
Speaker 2 (09:50):
Oh gosh, it used to be an old term, might
have been considered cultural competence, But nowadays cultural humility is
about making sure that we know we don't know everything
about another's culture, and we don't know everything about another's values,
and so we before we dictate or make a decision
(10:12):
on how somebody else is making a choice, we wait
and we ask more questions and we learn more about
a person before we pass judgment. So culture ability is
about waiting and asking more information and it's a lifelong thing. Absolutely,
And to me it.
Speaker 1 (10:27):
Can be simply described as you don't judge people. Yeah,
you accept people, and you're open to learning about the
differences of people, and you better know yourself too, right,
except right? Is it both men and women to do this?
Speaker 3 (10:43):
Absolutely?
Speaker 2 (10:44):
Couples can volunteer together, men and women.
Speaker 3 (10:48):
They each bring.
Speaker 2 (10:49):
There's a lot of guys who you know they don't
want to impose or make moms feel uncomfortable, but they
want to be able to help. They want to bring
their trucks, and they want to help their they want
to help with moving, and they just want to be useful.
Speaker 1 (11:02):
Oh my goodness, I didn't realize there's going to be
that too. Okay, well let's get back to if you
don't mind for a second. When these people come, they,
first of all, some of them do have places to live, yes, absolutely,
And how do you support them in those ways? Like
what are they being evicted? Or what happens? Right?
Speaker 2 (11:19):
So some moms, there's kind of a varying degrees. Some
moms are still in their apartment and are just getting
behind on bills. Some moms are very close to eviction
or about to be evicted. Some moms have already left
their home and are staying with family or friends. And
then if it's really bad and they're running out of
people that can help, you know, they might be in
(11:40):
their car or in a hotel or in shelters.
Speaker 1 (11:44):
So but what do you do? Do you provide and
you pay the bill temporarily or what happened? Right?
Speaker 2 (11:49):
So if they if we can, it's called preserving housing.
If we can preserve whatever housing they're already in. That's
the simplest solution, and it's simple for them too. Kids
can stay in this school that they were in, all
the commuting that they were used to, everything's the same.
That's the best choice whenever possible. So sometimes moms are,
you know, a couple thousand dollars back on rent, and
(12:11):
we come in, We get them all the way caught up,
and then we see, well are her bills covering? Is
her income covering all of her bills? And if there's
if she's short consistently every month, then we work on
plans for how she can improve that, whether it's increasing education, all.
Speaker 1 (12:30):
These all these women do, all of them have jobs.
Speaker 2 (12:35):
One of the simple requirements is that all of our
participants work. So they might not maybe they just lost
a job and that's what caused the financial trouble to
begin with. But the willingness to work and to work
sufficiently to cover their bills.
Speaker 1 (12:51):
That's their accountability or not just there write and checks
that because I think a lot of people say WHOA,
I might as well say I'm I'm homeless. No no, no, no,
there's accountability. Good great, good good. You were talking about
what else was about transportation? How'd they get back and forth?
That would be something too. Uh you said about keeping
(13:12):
them where they are, because if you move someplace else,
you don't know the area right and used to having
a wave of getting around. Tell me about what else
do you call it? What do these women need that
we can give you, that we can our listeners can donate.
Speaker 2 (13:27):
Yeah, so every mom is different. Sometimes when they're moving
into a new place, excuse me, they need maybe they
need furniture for their kids. So that's on occasion, that's
kind of a one time thing. Gift cards to the
grocery store. Oh my gosh, I could do. Sponsorships. Yeah,
Sponsorships like that are huge because even if a mom's
(13:47):
been in the program for a few months and things
are stable, the dust has settled, we've got her caught up,
she's got she's working, she's paying most of her bills.
We're only helping a little. Those emergencies pop up, you know,
the baby go oh gosh, a root canal recently happened
and just leveled mom again. It was really expensive. Things
like that grocery thing. I'm able to give them those
(14:09):
to offset her cash, free up her cash for those
emergency bills.
Speaker 3 (14:12):
That she's struggling.
Speaker 1 (14:13):
And those are all come from donations from people in
the community.
Speaker 3 (14:17):
People in the community, local churches.
Speaker 1 (14:20):
And what else you need. I give cars. I would
imagine any gas cars for a car.
Speaker 2 (14:24):
That's yes, big, those are hugely helpful. There's nothing for kids.
If you want me to get creative, I would love
to see kids with like lessons. If you know, I
can think of somebody right now who would really like
to learn to swim.
Speaker 1 (14:42):
Oh my goodness, you know what, there are people out there,
and I'm so glad that you're in News Counties. But
you're absolutely right. But I don't think people know about.
Speaker 2 (14:51):
You, right. Yeah, we're tiny. We've been a little bitty organiza.
Speaker 1 (14:55):
That's okay, because did I hear you had get sixteen
mothers went through there last year? So yeah, And is
it a program that they would graduate from or how
does that work? Yes?
Speaker 2 (15:05):
So the moms will stay with us for a year
to two years and once they've set you know, they
set their own goals. Once they meet their own goals
and their content and we know we can step away
and they're going to be okay. We throw them a
graduation party with their neighboring volunteers and then they're good
to go, and then those volunteers turn around and get
assigned to another mom.
Speaker 1 (15:24):
You were mentioning about the volunteers now you said was
six to ten. Is this from different churches in each
area or how does that? Do you need volunteer? What
I'm asking is do you need volunteers?
Speaker 3 (15:37):
Yes, absolutely, we need volunteers.
Speaker 2 (15:40):
Volunteers are our number one commodity, even more than funds
because funds you can kind of you can get frugal,
but you can't. You can't with volunteers. So right now
we have seven moms and twenty seven volunteers. I'm looking
to onboard another eight moms in the next six months.
(16:02):
We need forty more volunteers for those moms. So, and
which is from varying places.
Speaker 1 (16:09):
With our listeners out there, give them an example of
like what type of they have to take the online
course that's five hours, They have to have the background checks,
how much your commitment is it? Yeah, they have to
be available all the time, and what do they do right?
Speaker 2 (16:23):
So, yes, they do the five hour course. After that
we do a live class all together as a group
for a couple of hours. The moms are required to
meet with their volunteers once a month. So that's a
defined expectation for the volunteers. And of course if vacation,
that's okay.
Speaker 1 (16:40):
Do these volunteers know know about the background of the
person they're matched.
Speaker 3 (16:45):
With, Yes, to a degree.
Speaker 2 (16:47):
I respect mom's privacy, so they know what they need
to know, like here so and so, here are her kids,
this is where she lives, this is what she does. Mom.
It's up to mom to disclose her personal stuff. My goal,
and I think the organization school, is that they would
develop that trust with each other and then mom would
happily share who she is and what her values are
(17:09):
with time.
Speaker 3 (17:10):
So that's a friendship that is nurtured. That's not something
you forced.
Speaker 1 (17:13):
And with all that trauma that a lot of mothers
and true have gone through, they don't trust anybody.
Speaker 3 (17:17):
Right, absolutely, none of us would.
Speaker 1 (17:19):
This is like a new best friend, Yeah they have.
Speaker 2 (17:22):
Yeah, And so volunteers can be We have elderly volunteers
who write encouraging letters and maybe don't have a lot
of like physical time or energy to give. But we
might have another volunteer who's helping with pickups and drop
offs at the mechanic. Another one might just be that
shoulder friend who who commiserates with mom and understands maybe
(17:43):
some of her history and where she's been. Maybe they
have a common past. So it can be Again if
the volunteers listening to whatever God wants to put on
their heart, and the volunteer just brings them their authentic self,
they're going to befriend the mom in in their unique way.
Speaker 1 (18:01):
So you were talking about some people may need furniture,
Tell me about that. Does the community support you with
all these needs? Where do you get things that are
supplied to you? I know you're willing to take vehicles,
what else? What else do you need? And what's been
the community? The business community support.
Speaker 2 (18:19):
Yeah, local businesses have been helped. We have some mechanics
who donate services. That's huge because that's a constant need.
We have some financial advisors or experts who donate maybe
budget class time they can they participate to help moms
get their get their nitty gritty details there. Really it's
(18:43):
whatever we have a local business who shares office space
for us or lets us borrow it so that we
can do trainings in there. So really it's whatever you
think you have we can find.
Speaker 3 (18:55):
A need for it.
Speaker 2 (18:56):
Even even if you know sending a mom flowers on
her birth day, Like, how lovely would that be if
I knew that up Flores would be willing.
Speaker 3 (19:03):
To do that.
Speaker 1 (19:03):
Well, you're lifting their spirits and that makes us all.
That's everything exactly because you can have somebody that isn't
very nice to you, but they're taking care of you
and you just want to get out of there, and
you can have somebody who's wonderful. And I mean it's
all about lifting your spirits, yeah, and sending you in
(19:24):
the right direction and making you know that you do count,
you do have value. Because a lot of these women
come in to these oh my god, I love them
and then they're out in the streets with their children.
That's the most precious thing on earth to a mother,
to most mothers anything. So I think this is wonderful.
How do you raise money for some of the things
that you need?
Speaker 2 (19:44):
We are having a lot of the churches will support us.
We have a lot of monthly donors. They are our partners.
They make our months happen because every month we're looking
at who's what's everybody rent this month, what's everybody got
how much do we have to work with? How much
can we afford to help each individual mom?
Speaker 1 (20:06):
Why do you become a monthly donor? And what are
you looking for?
Speaker 3 (20:09):
Super easy?
Speaker 2 (20:10):
Even just twenty bucks a month is incredibly helpful. But
of course you can do more if you figure your
average rent cost, and we're doing at least a percentage
of it every month. So if somebody wanted to think about,
you know, fifty dollars a month would cover a whole
month's rent for a mom that year, and that would
be incredibly helpful. And then this year in March, we're
(20:32):
having our annual gala.
Speaker 1 (20:34):
Oh when does that tell me about that?
Speaker 3 (20:35):
It's March twenty second.
Speaker 2 (20:37):
Okay, It's at the West Shore Country Club and that's
where we're again just invite people to come and learn
about how we work, consider becoming a monthly volunteer or
making a one time donation. And then we do have
a keynote speaker. A couple of our moms, one who's
currently in the program as well as one who graduated
(20:57):
the program years ago, are both going to be speaking.
We're really excited that people get to meet some moms.
Speaker 1 (21:02):
Can you share some of those stories with wasn't you've
been there? What you've witnessed with some of these mothers.
Have they gone the changes?
Speaker 2 (21:09):
The changes, well, gosh, there's there's moms will tell you
to go from panic attacks over pain, getting bills paid
to actually being able to have an afternoon with their volunteers,
just doing a casual you know, arts and crafts with
the kids. Being able to enjoy life with your kids
(21:32):
instead of just running from shift to shift.
Speaker 1 (21:34):
And they're having a conversation and the woman, the mom
might say, tell about something. The woman thinks like you said, Oh,
oh my gosh, I just lost somebody in my founder.
Oh my gosh, I know somebody there are Oh my gosh,
I know somebody's getting rid of their car. They're going
to junk it. Exactly everything.
Speaker 2 (21:53):
Yeah, just having a group of friends who a lot
of times maybe moms are separated from their support group.
Maybe there's support groups in another state, their family, or
maybe their loved ones and the people they were close
who have passed away, or maybe the relationships weren't healthy
and they needed to walk away from them.
Speaker 3 (22:10):
Either way, they're.
Speaker 2 (22:10):
Dealing with a lot of loneliness and having a new
group of people to come in and just infuse energy
and support into that household that.
Speaker 3 (22:19):
That really speaks to them and they just feel related.
Speaker 1 (22:22):
And you said that volunteers only do this once a month.
Speaker 2 (22:25):
They get together once a month, and I encourage them
to check in on their mom's weekly. So it doesn't
have to be every single volunteer. It can be maybe
there's somebody who's really chatty and likes to kind of
stay in the loop and she's texting regularly, Hey, how
are you what's going on this week? One is six.
It's it doesn't have to be hard. It can be
(22:46):
you can get You can jump into it as with
as much time and energy as you have to offer.
And if you have just a little bit and you care,
that counts and that goes a long way too well.
Speaker 1 (22:56):
And I also realized from checking out what I did
online the factor organization is you're always looking for ways
to help these women more like there are what about
landlords out there?
Speaker 3 (23:09):
Oh my gosh, I'm so glad you said that.
Speaker 2 (23:11):
We have some amazing landlords who actually know who we
are and are willing to take our clients on. Sometimes
moms credit gets ruined in the process and they've got
you know, so many back bills. Maybe a job loss
caused it, and so landlords are a little bit concerned
about renting to someone with either an adviction on their
(23:31):
past or whatever. Our landlords understand that there are clients
and that we're going to back them up, and so
they're willing to take that risk with us. And some
of our landlords then become neighboring volunteers so that we
can always use a landlord who's willing to rent to
one of our moms.
Speaker 1 (23:49):
You can always use a lot of things, yeah, I
mean furniture, gas cards, food cards, even diapers. Diapers, that's
a biggie donation this. I think it's great that this
is open to the public. It's of your family gala again.
It's March twenty second, at five o'clock at the Wishore
Country Club. They're gonna have music auctions, and I think
(24:12):
the coolest thing about it is that you're gonna have
women there who've gone through the process, and I can
imagine it's going to be pretty inspiring evening.
Speaker 3 (24:20):
If it's going to be beautiful.
Speaker 1 (24:21):
Yeah, let me ask you why you do what you do.
I mean, that's got to be a hard breaker. I
mean I want to take everybody home with me.
Speaker 2 (24:31):
Yes, I personally, when you take care of the parents,
the children are inherently going to be well taken care of.
If you want to make a difference in a child's life,
make sure their parents have what they need. And this
is such a beautiful way to bring community around mom
and kids and just shore up her resources so that
(24:54):
she can be the best loving mom she can be.
I love watching that. I love knowing that we can
support moms in their goals and then they in turn
are going to just naturally take good care of their babies.
Speaker 1 (25:08):
Let's wrap this up by telling people exactly what you
need again, what your plans are for the future. Because
you said about you're glad, I'm glad I mentioned that too,
because I think, first of all, excuse me, you're all
about the volunteers and what they do. That's the core,
that's the catalyst to everything working out. But having a
(25:30):
place to live, you believe, and that's what starts mothers
and their children back healing and getting on their own
feet the way they're supposed to be, like the road
to self sufficiency. Right. So you're looking for again, any
landlord out there who's willing to help.
Speaker 3 (25:47):
Yes, exactly.
Speaker 2 (25:48):
We need landlords who are willing to get moms started
and we will make sure that those bills get paid.
And then once mom gets stable. Oh my gosh, we
need RECs. We need job leads. If mom is looking
for a new job. Maybe I called a friend who kind.
Speaker 3 (26:08):
Of was an IT guy.
Speaker 2 (26:09):
I said, coach me on how to coach mom on
how to break into the IT thing, because that's her
skill set. She's switching from one career to another. But
I don't have that, and he did.
Speaker 1 (26:19):
That was awesome. You just have a time. You're in
three different counties, but you just have a little couple
of people in your office. How do you do this?
Speaker 3 (26:26):
Yeah, we're just four of us.
Speaker 2 (26:29):
Well, National is awesome with providing resources, and then our
board helps and we just we follow. We follow the
plan that National gives us, and the moms find us
and God sets up the rest.
Speaker 1 (26:45):
Oh, I think this is so cool. How do we
gotta have you in again? We got to talk more
about what you need and get updates. And oh my gosh,
at the top of my head when I think about
all the people that can help you, how did they
get in touch with you? And what is your web address?
Speaker 2 (27:01):
Yes, our web address is Harrisburg dot Bridge of Hope, Inc.
Speaker 3 (27:05):
Dot org.
Speaker 1 (27:06):
And get a phone number. Yes, I can get it
from me and we can do it.
Speaker 2 (27:13):
Go ahead, they can call me seven seven three five
five one.
Speaker 1 (27:17):
Okay, but it's better to reach your three.
Speaker 3 (27:19):
Yeah, right on the website.
Speaker 2 (27:20):
It'll you can go straight to the office and and
if they want to donate. Diana is our office administrator.
She takes in all that stuff and creates to any
you know, whether it's monthly or annually, it's all good.
Speaker 1 (27:35):
You heard it. She needs more fun fee and if
you want that more information to donate your funds a
vehicle every day. I know this. I mean, if you
want to get your church involved in this wonderful program.
And it's only an hour or so, what max a week?
I mean, it's up to you. It's up to you.
But it's called Bridge of Hope. And my guest today
(27:58):
has been their lead manager case manager. Excuse me, Heidi,
how am I seeing your name? Mattiness Weaver. I think
this has been great. Thanks so much for coming in.
You know, as I said to Heidie, I remember hearing
that last year Bridge of Hope in Harrisburg went that
had sixteen families that went through this and it's all
about getting them sustainable, housey, emotional balance, financial stability, and
(28:23):
I think it's one of the greatest things going to
So please check them out and also don't forget this weekend.
As always, we every weekend. Listen to me tripping over
my words. Every weekend, catch Insight on one of our
ten Ihearts stations or on your favorite podcast app. I'm
Sylvia Molas. This has been Insight. Thanks so much for listening.
Speaker 4 (28:42):
To see you next week.
Speaker 1 (29:07):
If you think that only old people get Parkinson's disease, huh,
you're wrong. If you think you can die from Parkinson's disease,
wrong again. Get heard that research shows that we're getting
close to a cure for Parkinson's. Well, we have finally
got one right. Eduscate yourself about Parkinsons disease by going
to ap DA Parkinson dot org. Are calling one eight
(29:32):
hundred two two three seven two seven three to two, Hi,
this is Iheartpublic affairs director and host of Insights, Sylvia Moss.
Each week on Insight, we address and try to provide
the best local resources for issues that you tell me
are the most important to you, the ones that have
the biggest impact on your everyday lives. Insights also a
place where we can let you know about exciting community
(29:53):
events and introduce you to many of the incredible people
who work hard every single day just to make all
of our lives better. If you not able to listen
to Insight when it airs on this station each week,
then catch it on your favorite podcast stapp Thank you
for listening.
Hi, I'm Sylvia Moss and this is Insight, a presentation
of iHeartMedia where we really do care about our local
communities and all our listeners who live here. You know,
when most of us think about somebody who's homeless, we
picture maybe an older man with tattered, dirty clothes, lost
wandering around. Might even see a picture of sleeping on
(00:21):
a bench. But yeah, that's a pretty good picture. That's
what most of us think. There are a lot of
men out there that are on the streets, and a
lot of us have seen them. However, the true image
of homelessness is mirrored in the faces of every part
of our society. While researching the homeless and how they
end up that way, I was shocked to find out
(00:41):
that fifty percent, fifty percent of all homeless people in
this country are women with children, with factors that lead
to their circumstances that are different than any others who
are homeless. I wanted to talk more about this and
for people in Central Pennsylvania look around you. Yes, I
can tell you that, believe it or not. Here in
(01:02):
Central Pa there are many women and children who are
out in the streets and they're homeless. Well, I accidentally
came across an organization that we're going to talk about today,
and I'm really happy about it because what they do
is they change the lives of these homeless women and
their children in so many ways. And it's not a handout.
(01:23):
And my guest today, I will tell you it's not
a handout. It's a handout. You're going to be amazed
and hopefully choose to support them with us. From the
organization known as the Bridge of Hope in Harrisburg is
their lead case manager, Heidi cardinist Weaver. Heidi, thanks so
much for coming. And I had no idea you guys
are out there, and honest goodness, I had no idea
(01:46):
there were women and children out on the streets. I
figured that when they're in that situation that they usually
end up at a shelter. But where your whole focus
is is not to get them away from a shelter,
and you're not You're not a temporary shelter. You're there
to get their lives in orders. So let me ask
(02:07):
you this. When I mentioned, you know, we think about
a man out on the street, how did their issue,
how do the way we think about homeless people in general,
how did they actually differ from moms with their kids
out in the street. I mean, what are they coming?
They can't be coming from the same direction the same place, right.
Speaker 2 (02:27):
Oftentimes moms who are struggling with homelessness are they were
previously perhaps okay, maybe they were had a partner, maybe
they had a family member they were staying with. But
some set of circumstances it starts to make them vulnerable.
Maybe it's a child who's sick, or they are their
(02:49):
job is barely enough to cover the bills, and then
an emergency comes along and just takes their feet out
from under them. So they are keeping their families, they're
keeping their homes, but they're they're fragile. They have a
very delicate set of logistics that can't take major emergencies
very easily.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
Oh wow, So let me ask you this. They come from,
where are they referred? Do they walk in? How does
one if you see someone out there and know the situation,
how do you get them into bridge A hope?
Speaker 2 (03:20):
Yeah, Our website has a tab that they can click
on for help. There are local agencies that have our
name now and so when someone calls maybe two one
one for housing assistants, our name is one of the
names that comes up as potential assistance, and sometimes they
get referred by friends who know of us. Local churches
(03:40):
sometimes have moms groups or they keep an eye out
for the single moms in their churches, and if that
church already knows who we are, maybe already has volunteers
working for us, then they'll sometimes refer to us.
Speaker 1 (03:51):
Your organization was started by a couple of women, right, yes.
Speaker 3 (03:57):
Thirty years ago. They decided.
Speaker 2 (04:00):
They knew that it wasn't just finances that moms needed,
but relationship, so they they did something very very unique
and created that.
Speaker 1 (04:09):
Okay, we're going to talk about that. Typically the women
do they if they are in abusive relationships? What what
state of mind are they in when they commit or
even even having to to live somewhere and have to
leave and go to a should and go someplace else.
What's is the state or their mental health or their
emotional help.
Speaker 2 (04:30):
They have so much on their shoulders. They've got so
much anxiety from what's the next logistic going to be?
Speaker 3 (04:36):
Are my kids going to be?
Speaker 1 (04:37):
Okay?
Speaker 2 (04:37):
Where am I going to put them? They've just got
so much pressure and fear trying to solve these really
basic you know, keep my family safe type questions, not
to mention they recovering from the relational stuff that we're
all recovering from something that way.
Speaker 3 (04:55):
There, they've got that double duty.
Speaker 1 (04:58):
And what has been the impact on kids? Are they
typical younger kids that come with the moms.
Speaker 2 (05:03):
The average age for our kids is eight. Okay, so
we take a mom with any minor child, so they
can be seventeen or they might be babies.
Speaker 1 (05:11):
But they've seen things that they I don't want to
say normal, because nobody's normal, but the average child that
there doesn't see they've got to carry that with them.
Speaker 3 (05:20):
Yeah, there are kids. I'm so proud of them.
Speaker 2 (05:23):
There are kids living in shelters with their mom right
now who are getting straight a's in school, and they're
fighting so hard to just stay close with their mom
and be a family kind of under any circumstance. And
they're troopers, but they worry about their mom. They also
trust their mom to come through for them, and they
(05:45):
deal with all the same anxiety. But they're little and
don't have that, Sure, they don't charity to handle it.
Speaker 1 (05:50):
Sure. Well, you know what I'm going to talk about
that super power that you're alluding to earlier because I
think it's really great and oh boy, if a woman
wants to get in, there are there any praise prerequisites
to getting into your program? I know they have to
fill out a form online, but is it income based?
I mean, how do you judge who's a part of
the program who's not.
Speaker 2 (06:11):
Yeah, we try to have as few barriers as possible.
We want to be able to help as many people
as possible. There are a couple of logistics. First, we
service York, Cumberland and Dolphin County, so they do have
to live nearby. They also need to have one minor
child in living with them in the home, okay. And
then lastly, we focus on single moms. So if it's
(06:35):
a couple, we would refer them to somebody who services families.
Right if they have another adult in the home who
can help bay bills, we would probably move on to
a mom who's totally on her own.
Speaker 1 (06:48):
Okay, that sounds good. So let me ask. I know
you're biting it the bit to talk about the relationships
you this is so cool, because how do we exist?
We keep on talking about takes a village. It takes it,
darn it. It does take availity. And you guys make
that part of it's the core of your organization, makes
it so successful, tell us about it.
Speaker 2 (07:10):
Yeah, So they when they founded Bridge of Hope, they
knew that relationship was at the core of what love
and family and stability needs. So they take six to
ten volunteers and they train them cultural training, you know,
respect of respect of the individual. They just they just
(07:34):
make sure that the volunteers are ready to support mom
in whatever her goals are. And then those volunteers are
matched with a mom and they stay with her through
the whole program, which is eighteen months to two years,
and they can be they can be any kind of
friends she needs them to be. So if she needs logistics,
if she needs a shoulder crown, if she wants to
(07:55):
if she needs dinner out, and she needs some sanity,
they become whatever is and then they become social capital.
Speaker 1 (08:02):
Where did they come from? They come from.
Speaker 2 (08:04):
The churches that we go to and who decide to
support us. So we can go to churches or small
groups and speak to them and then those volunteers kind
of feel that nudge they want to be there for someone,
and usually they're friends with each other. They maybe already
are in a group together or church together, and they
(08:25):
decide to team up and all focus on one mom together.
Speaker 1 (08:29):
I would think they everybody brings something special about themselves
that they can offer. Is that true?
Speaker 2 (08:36):
It is so beautiful I've watched I try not to
coordinate eat too much.
Speaker 1 (08:42):
Who becomes matched with who? That's a God thing.
Speaker 2 (08:45):
God knows who needs who. Sometimes details that I never
knew about a volunteer will come up after they've met mom.
For example, a mom loses a parent, Well, I match
them up, and weeks or months later I find out
that volunteer lost a part as well. And now these
wonderful touch points and connecting points, and that just keeps
(09:06):
happening week after month, and it's great.
Speaker 1 (09:09):
So talk about divining intervens about it. So these are
people who they're from church, and they're willing to be
trained to help these mothers. Tell me about some of
the specific areas, like you were talking a little bit
about a couple of months ago, the different areas, like
how they would help help these Are they all trained
the same? And how do you qualify to be a volunteer?
Speaker 2 (09:31):
Yeah, the very first thing is we do background checks
and fingerprints make sure everybody's safe, and then they do
five hours of online training that comes from our national organization.
They've developed that and they teach. It's a lot of
cultural humility training.
Speaker 1 (09:47):
And people don't know what can you explain the definition
of that?
Speaker 2 (09:50):
Oh gosh, it used to be an old term, might
have been considered cultural competence, But nowadays cultural humility is
about making sure that we know we don't know everything
about another's culture, and we don't know everything about another's values,
and so we before we dictate or make a decision
(10:12):
on how somebody else is making a choice, we wait
and we ask more questions and we learn more about
a person before we pass judgment. So culture ability is
about waiting and asking more information and it's a lifelong thing. Absolutely,
And to me it.
Speaker 1 (10:27):
Can be simply described as you don't judge people. Yeah,
you accept people, and you're open to learning about the
differences of people, and you better know yourself too, right,
except right? Is it both men and women to do this?
Speaker 3 (10:43):
Absolutely?
Speaker 2 (10:44):
Couples can volunteer together, men and women.
Speaker 3 (10:48):
They each bring.
Speaker 2 (10:49):
There's a lot of guys who you know they don't
want to impose or make moms feel uncomfortable, but they
want to be able to help. They want to bring
their trucks, and they want to help their they want
to help with moving, and they just want to be useful.
Speaker 1 (11:02):
Oh my goodness, I didn't realize there's going to be
that too. Okay, well let's get back to if you
don't mind for a second. When these people come, they,
first of all, some of them do have places to live, yes, absolutely,
And how do you support them in those ways? Like
what are they being evicted? Or what happens? Right?
Speaker 2 (11:19):
So some moms, there's kind of a varying degrees. Some
moms are still in their apartment and are just getting
behind on bills. Some moms are very close to eviction
or about to be evicted. Some moms have already left
their home and are staying with family or friends. And
then if it's really bad and they're running out of
people that can help, you know, they might be in
(11:40):
their car or in a hotel or in shelters.
Speaker 1 (11:44):
So but what do you do? Do you provide and
you pay the bill temporarily or what happened? Right?
Speaker 2 (11:49):
So if they if we can, it's called preserving housing.
If we can preserve whatever housing they're already in. That's
the simplest solution, and it's simple for them too. Kids
can stay in this school that they were in, all
the commuting that they were used to, everything's the same.
That's the best choice whenever possible. So sometimes moms are,
you know, a couple thousand dollars back on rent, and
(12:11):
we come in, We get them all the way caught up,
and then we see, well are her bills covering? Is
her income covering all of her bills? And if there's
if she's short consistently every month, then we work on
plans for how she can improve that, whether it's increasing education, all.
Speaker 1 (12:30):
These all these women do, all of them have jobs.
Speaker 2 (12:35):
One of the simple requirements is that all of our
participants work. So they might not maybe they just lost
a job and that's what caused the financial trouble to
begin with. But the willingness to work and to work
sufficiently to cover their bills.
Speaker 1 (12:51):
That's their accountability or not just there write and checks
that because I think a lot of people say WHOA,
I might as well say I'm I'm homeless. No no, no, no,
there's accountability. Good great, good good. You were talking about
what else was about transportation? How'd they get back and forth?
That would be something too. Uh you said about keeping
(13:12):
them where they are, because if you move someplace else,
you don't know the area right and used to having
a wave of getting around. Tell me about what else
do you call it? What do these women need that
we can give you, that we can our listeners can donate.
Speaker 2 (13:27):
Yeah, so every mom is different. Sometimes when they're moving
into a new place, excuse me, they need maybe they
need furniture for their kids. So that's on occasion, that's
kind of a one time thing. Gift cards to the
grocery store. Oh my gosh, I could do. Sponsorships. Yeah,
Sponsorships like that are huge because even if a mom's
(13:47):
been in the program for a few months and things
are stable, the dust has settled, we've got her caught up,
she's got she's working, she's paying most of her bills.
We're only helping a little. Those emergencies pop up, you know,
the baby go oh gosh, a root canal recently happened
and just leveled mom again. It was really expensive. Things
like that grocery thing. I'm able to give them those
(14:09):
to offset her cash, free up her cash for those
emergency bills.
Speaker 3 (14:12):
That she's struggling.
Speaker 1 (14:13):
And those are all come from donations from people in
the community.
Speaker 3 (14:17):
People in the community, local churches.
Speaker 1 (14:20):
And what else you need. I give cars. I would
imagine any gas cars for a car.
Speaker 2 (14:24):
That's yes, big, those are hugely helpful. There's nothing for kids.
If you want me to get creative, I would love
to see kids with like lessons. If you know, I
can think of somebody right now who would really like
to learn to swim.
Speaker 1 (14:42):
Oh my goodness, you know what, there are people out there,
and I'm so glad that you're in News Counties. But
you're absolutely right. But I don't think people know about.
Speaker 2 (14:51):
You, right. Yeah, we're tiny. We've been a little bitty organiza.
Speaker 1 (14:55):
That's okay, because did I hear you had get sixteen
mothers went through there last year? So yeah, And is
it a program that they would graduate from or how
does that work? Yes?
Speaker 2 (15:05):
So the moms will stay with us for a year
to two years and once they've set you know, they
set their own goals. Once they meet their own goals
and their content and we know we can step away
and they're going to be okay. We throw them a
graduation party with their neighboring volunteers and then they're good
to go, and then those volunteers turn around and get
assigned to another mom.
Speaker 1 (15:24):
You were mentioning about the volunteers now you said was
six to ten. Is this from different churches in each
area or how does that? Do you need volunteer? What
I'm asking is do you need volunteers?
Speaker 3 (15:37):
Yes, absolutely, we need volunteers.
Speaker 2 (15:40):
Volunteers are our number one commodity, even more than funds
because funds you can kind of you can get frugal,
but you can't. You can't with volunteers. So right now
we have seven moms and twenty seven volunteers. I'm looking
to onboard another eight moms in the next six months.
(16:02):
We need forty more volunteers for those moms. So, and
which is from varying places.
Speaker 1 (16:09):
With our listeners out there, give them an example of
like what type of they have to take the online
course that's five hours, They have to have the background checks,
how much your commitment is it? Yeah, they have to
be available all the time, and what do they do right?
Speaker 2 (16:23):
So, yes, they do the five hour course. After that
we do a live class all together as a group
for a couple of hours. The moms are required to
meet with their volunteers once a month. So that's a
defined expectation for the volunteers. And of course if vacation,
that's okay.
Speaker 1 (16:40):
Do these volunteers know know about the background of the
person they're matched.
Speaker 3 (16:45):
With, Yes, to a degree.
Speaker 2 (16:47):
I respect mom's privacy, so they know what they need
to know, like here so and so, here are her kids,
this is where she lives, this is what she does. Mom.
It's up to mom to disclose her personal stuff. My goal,
and I think the organization school, is that they would
develop that trust with each other and then mom would
happily share who she is and what her values are
(17:09):
with time.
Speaker 3 (17:10):
So that's a friendship that is nurtured. That's not something
you forced.
Speaker 1 (17:13):
And with all that trauma that a lot of mothers
and true have gone through, they don't trust anybody.
Speaker 3 (17:17):
Right, absolutely, none of us would.
Speaker 1 (17:19):
This is like a new best friend, Yeah they have.
Speaker 2 (17:22):
Yeah, And so volunteers can be We have elderly volunteers
who write encouraging letters and maybe don't have a lot
of like physical time or energy to give. But we
might have another volunteer who's helping with pickups and drop
offs at the mechanic. Another one might just be that
shoulder friend who who commiserates with mom and understands maybe
(17:43):
some of her history and where she's been. Maybe they
have a common past. So it can be Again if
the volunteers listening to whatever God wants to put on
their heart, and the volunteer just brings them their authentic self,
they're going to befriend the mom in in their unique way.
Speaker 1 (18:01):
So you were talking about some people may need furniture,
Tell me about that. Does the community support you with
all these needs? Where do you get things that are
supplied to you? I know you're willing to take vehicles,
what else? What else do you need? And what's been
the community? The business community support.
Speaker 2 (18:19):
Yeah, local businesses have been helped. We have some mechanics
who donate services. That's huge because that's a constant need.
We have some financial advisors or experts who donate maybe
budget class time they can they participate to help moms
get their get their nitty gritty details there. Really it's
(18:43):
whatever we have a local business who shares office space
for us or lets us borrow it so that we
can do trainings in there. So really it's whatever you
think you have we can find.
Speaker 3 (18:55):
A need for it.
Speaker 2 (18:56):
Even even if you know sending a mom flowers on
her birth day, Like, how lovely would that be if
I knew that up Flores would be willing.
Speaker 3 (19:03):
To do that.
Speaker 1 (19:03):
Well, you're lifting their spirits and that makes us all.
That's everything exactly because you can have somebody that isn't
very nice to you, but they're taking care of you
and you just want to get out of there, and
you can have somebody who's wonderful. And I mean it's
all about lifting your spirits, yeah, and sending you in
(19:24):
the right direction and making you know that you do count,
you do have value. Because a lot of these women
come in to these oh my god, I love them
and then they're out in the streets with their children.
That's the most precious thing on earth to a mother,
to most mothers anything. So I think this is wonderful.
How do you raise money for some of the things
that you need?
Speaker 2 (19:44):
We are having a lot of the churches will support us.
We have a lot of monthly donors. They are our partners.
They make our months happen because every month we're looking
at who's what's everybody rent this month, what's everybody got
how much do we have to work with? How much
can we afford to help each individual mom?
Speaker 1 (20:06):
Why do you become a monthly donor? And what are
you looking for?
Speaker 3 (20:09):
Super easy?
Speaker 2 (20:10):
Even just twenty bucks a month is incredibly helpful. But
of course you can do more if you figure your
average rent cost, and we're doing at least a percentage
of it every month. So if somebody wanted to think about,
you know, fifty dollars a month would cover a whole
month's rent for a mom that year, and that would
be incredibly helpful. And then this year in March, we're
(20:32):
having our annual gala.
Speaker 1 (20:34):
Oh when does that tell me about that?
Speaker 3 (20:35):
It's March twenty second.
Speaker 2 (20:37):
Okay, It's at the West Shore Country Club and that's
where we're again just invite people to come and learn
about how we work, consider becoming a monthly volunteer or
making a one time donation. And then we do have
a keynote speaker. A couple of our moms, one who's
currently in the program as well as one who graduated
(20:57):
the program years ago, are both going to be speaking.
We're really excited that people get to meet some moms.
Speaker 1 (21:02):
Can you share some of those stories with wasn't you've
been there? What you've witnessed with some of these mothers.
Have they gone the changes?
Speaker 2 (21:09):
The changes, well, gosh, there's there's moms will tell you
to go from panic attacks over pain, getting bills paid
to actually being able to have an afternoon with their volunteers,
just doing a casual you know, arts and crafts with
the kids. Being able to enjoy life with your kids
(21:32):
instead of just running from shift to shift.
Speaker 1 (21:34):
And they're having a conversation and the woman, the mom
might say, tell about something. The woman thinks like you said, Oh,
oh my gosh, I just lost somebody in my founder.
Oh my gosh, I know somebody there are Oh my gosh,
I know somebody's getting rid of their car. They're going
to junk it. Exactly everything.
Speaker 2 (21:53):
Yeah, just having a group of friends who a lot
of times maybe moms are separated from their support group.
Maybe there's support groups in another state, their family, or
maybe their loved ones and the people they were close
who have passed away, or maybe the relationships weren't healthy
and they needed to walk away from them.
Speaker 3 (22:10):
Either way, they're.
Speaker 2 (22:10):
Dealing with a lot of loneliness and having a new
group of people to come in and just infuse energy
and support into that household that.
Speaker 3 (22:19):
That really speaks to them and they just feel related.
Speaker 1 (22:22):
And you said that volunteers only do this once a month.
Speaker 2 (22:25):
They get together once a month, and I encourage them
to check in on their mom's weekly. So it doesn't
have to be every single volunteer. It can be maybe
there's somebody who's really chatty and likes to kind of
stay in the loop and she's texting regularly, Hey, how
are you what's going on this week? One is six.
It's it doesn't have to be hard. It can be
(22:46):
you can get You can jump into it as with
as much time and energy as you have to offer.
And if you have just a little bit and you care,
that counts and that goes a long way too well.
Speaker 1 (22:56):
And I also realized from checking out what I did
online the factor organization is you're always looking for ways
to help these women more like there are what about
landlords out there?
Speaker 3 (23:09):
Oh my gosh, I'm so glad you said that.
Speaker 2 (23:11):
We have some amazing landlords who actually know who we
are and are willing to take our clients on. Sometimes
moms credit gets ruined in the process and they've got
you know, so many back bills. Maybe a job loss
caused it, and so landlords are a little bit concerned
about renting to someone with either an adviction on their
(23:31):
past or whatever. Our landlords understand that there are clients
and that we're going to back them up, and so
they're willing to take that risk with us. And some
of our landlords then become neighboring volunteers so that we
can always use a landlord who's willing to rent to
one of our moms.
Speaker 1 (23:49):
You can always use a lot of things, yeah, I
mean furniture, gas cards, food cards, even diapers. Diapers, that's
a biggie donation this. I think it's great that this
is open to the public. It's of your family gala again.
It's March twenty second, at five o'clock at the Wishore
Country Club. They're gonna have music auctions, and I think
(24:12):
the coolest thing about it is that you're gonna have
women there who've gone through the process, and I can
imagine it's going to be pretty inspiring evening.
Speaker 3 (24:20):
If it's going to be beautiful.
Speaker 1 (24:21):
Yeah, let me ask you why you do what you do.
I mean, that's got to be a hard breaker. I
mean I want to take everybody home with me.
Speaker 2 (24:31):
Yes, I personally, when you take care of the parents,
the children are inherently going to be well taken care of.
If you want to make a difference in a child's life,
make sure their parents have what they need. And this
is such a beautiful way to bring community around mom
and kids and just shore up her resources so that
(24:54):
she can be the best loving mom she can be.
I love watching that. I love knowing that we can
support moms in their goals and then they in turn
are going to just naturally take good care of their babies.
Speaker 1 (25:08):
Let's wrap this up by telling people exactly what you
need again, what your plans are for the future. Because
you said about you're glad, I'm glad I mentioned that too,
because I think, first of all, excuse me, you're all
about the volunteers and what they do. That's the core,
that's the catalyst to everything working out. But having a
(25:30):
place to live, you believe, and that's what starts mothers
and their children back healing and getting on their own
feet the way they're supposed to be, like the road
to self sufficiency. Right. So you're looking for again, any
landlord out there who's willing to help.
Speaker 3 (25:47):
Yes, exactly.
Speaker 2 (25:48):
We need landlords who are willing to get moms started
and we will make sure that those bills get paid.
And then once mom gets stable. Oh my gosh, we
need RECs. We need job leads. If mom is looking
for a new job. Maybe I called a friend who kind.
Speaker 3 (26:08):
Of was an IT guy.
Speaker 2 (26:09):
I said, coach me on how to coach mom on
how to break into the IT thing, because that's her
skill set. She's switching from one career to another. But
I don't have that, and he did.
Speaker 1 (26:19):
That was awesome. You just have a time. You're in
three different counties, but you just have a little couple
of people in your office. How do you do this?
Speaker 3 (26:26):
Yeah, we're just four of us.
Speaker 2 (26:29):
Well, National is awesome with providing resources, and then our
board helps and we just we follow. We follow the
plan that National gives us, and the moms find us
and God sets up the rest.
Speaker 1 (26:45):
Oh, I think this is so cool. How do we
gotta have you in again? We got to talk more
about what you need and get updates. And oh my gosh,
at the top of my head when I think about
all the people that can help you, how did they
get in touch with you? And what is your web address?
Speaker 2 (27:01):
Yes, our web address is Harrisburg dot Bridge of Hope, Inc.
Speaker 3 (27:05):
Dot org.
Speaker 1 (27:06):
And get a phone number. Yes, I can get it
from me and we can do it.
Speaker 2 (27:13):
Go ahead, they can call me seven seven three five
five one.
Speaker 1 (27:17):
Okay, but it's better to reach your three.
Speaker 3 (27:19):
Yeah, right on the website.
Speaker 2 (27:20):
It'll you can go straight to the office and and
if they want to donate. Diana is our office administrator.
She takes in all that stuff and creates to any
you know, whether it's monthly or annually, it's all good.
Speaker 1 (27:35):
You heard it. She needs more fun fee and if
you want that more information to donate your funds a
vehicle every day. I know this. I mean, if you
want to get your church involved in this wonderful program.
And it's only an hour or so, what max a week?
I mean, it's up to you. It's up to you.
But it's called Bridge of Hope. And my guest today
(27:58):
has been their lead manager case manager. Excuse me, Heidi,
how am I seeing your name? Mattiness Weaver. I think
this has been great. Thanks so much for coming in.
You know, as I said to Heidie, I remember hearing
that last year Bridge of Hope in Harrisburg went that
had sixteen families that went through this and it's all
about getting them sustainable, housey, emotional balance, financial stability, and
(28:23):
I think it's one of the greatest things going to
So please check them out and also don't forget this weekend.
As always, we every weekend. Listen to me tripping over
my words. Every weekend, catch Insight on one of our
ten Ihearts stations or on your favorite podcast app. I'm
Sylvia Molas. This has been Insight. Thanks so much for listening.
Speaker 4 (28:42):
To see you next week.
Speaker 1 (29:07):
If you think that only old people get Parkinson's disease, huh,
you're wrong. If you think you can die from Parkinson's disease,
wrong again. Get heard that research shows that we're getting
close to a cure for Parkinson's. Well, we have finally
got one right. Eduscate yourself about Parkinsons disease by going
to ap DA Parkinson dot org. Are calling one eight
(29:32):
hundred two two three seven two seven three to two, Hi,
this is Iheartpublic affairs director and host of Insights, Sylvia Moss.
Each week on Insight, we address and try to provide
the best local resources for issues that you tell me
are the most important to you, the ones that have
the biggest impact on your everyday lives. Insights also a
place where we can let you know about exciting community
(29:53):
events and introduce you to many of the incredible people
who work hard every single day just to make all
of our lives better. If you not able to listen
to Insight when it airs on this station each week,
then catch it on your favorite podcast stapp Thank you
for listening.
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