ABOUT HOPE CREEK
What is Hope Creek Charitable Foundation, and what is our purpose?
Hope Creek Charitable Foundation is a non-profit organization located in Mill Creek, WA. It is a 501(c)(3) entity with a primary mission to partner with individuals to meet basic human rights of food and shelter by fostering a robust community and practicing exceptional generosity. Hope Creek Charitable Foundation’s early programs included Tailgate and Backpacks Of Hope. The Tailgate program provided hot meals to the homeless population in a safe and welcoming environment, offering more than just food. It provided a sense of community, a place to belong, and a chance to connect with others. The Backpacks Of Hope program for school children is another vital program that provides nutritious food for the weekends when school meals are not available, ensuring that children have access to healthy meals which in turn improves their academic performance, health, and overall well-being.
Hope Creek Charitable Foundation was approached to take over the Mill Creek Community Food Bank, which was started by students from Henry M. Jackson High School who noticed some of their peers experiencing food insecurity. Since Hope Creek Charitable Foundation already had programs in place to serve the food insecure population, including Tailgate and Backpacks Of Hope programs, it was a natural fit to include the Mill Creek Community Food Bank under its umbrella.
The Covid pandemic created a turning point for Hope Creek Charitable Foundation in 2020, and it had to respond to the challenges posed by the constantly changing situation. With limited volunteer availability and numerous regulations, Hope Creek Charitable Foundation focused its efforts on The Mill Creek Community Food Bank and Backpacks Of Hope programs, leaving the feeding of the homeless to other capable non-profit organizations. The demand for Hope Creek Charitable Foundation's services increased dramatically during the pandemic, and the organization had to figure out how to continue providing for the 300% increase in demand at the Mill Creek Community Food Bank program while solely relying on public donations. Fortunately, the community rallied around Hope Creek Charitable Foundation, and it was able to keep providing groceries to the community.
The Backpacks Of Hope program was significantly impacted by the pandemic, especially when schools shut down for at-home learning. To address this, Hope Creek Charitable Foundation quickly implemented a delivery service to the school parking lots, where parents could walk to pick up bags of food for their children over the weekend when they didn't have a job to pay for gas, let alone groceries. However, the organization soon realized that a bag of food meant for one child was actually feeding the entire family. In response, Hope Creek Charitable Foundation changed its services again and included family bags, large dried stew kits, and bags of instant chili to help families stretch the food to feed their entire household.
As the shutdowns continued, families had to start feeding neighborhood children whose parents still had to go to work, and the foundation upped its efforts even more by purchasing pallets of food and produce to meet the increasing demands. Hope Creek Charitable Foundation is committed to giving beyond what is necessary or expected, and our community's generosity allows us to do so, continually moving individuals from a perspective of scarcity and a posture of dependency to a perspective of hope and a posture of generosity.
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