2013 Year in Review

2013 was an incredible year of growth and change for Friendship House! Under the direction of our visionary Executive Director, Marie Marchand, we expanded our programs while continuing to provide our vital services to the homeless of Skagit County.

In 2013, we:

-Provided over 10,000 bed nights to men, women and children in need of shelter. We believe in treating each resident with dignity and respect. During their stay with us, we provide for all their basic needs and offer supportive case management with the ultimate goal of helping each person achieve self-sufficiency.

-Served over 50,000 meals to our residents and the general public. We serve three hot meals a day, 365 days a year. We are the only free daily meal service in Skagit County.

-Hired a new Kitchen Manager, Tom Hoffman. Tom has over 20 years restaurant experience and does a wonderful job planning the meals and leading residents and volunteers in meal preparation and serving. Tom will be our lead instructor in the Hunger to Hope program.

 -Hired a Hunger to Hope Program Coordinator, Blake Westhoff, with a three-year grant from the M.J. Murdock Charitable Trust. Blake will oversee the planning, management, and development of the new Hunger to Hope program.

-Built the brand new Friendship House Café! This new building is more than double the size of our original community kitchen and provides a warm and inviting environment for daily meals. All are welcome to join us in a spirit of goodwill.

We won’t stop there! Our goals for 2014 are to:

-Refurbish the former kitchen space. We have not yet formalized plans for this space, but we intend to use it to further our humanitarian goals.

-Increase annual number of meals served in the Friendship House Café by 15,000. Our belief is that the larger, more inviting dining area will encourage more hungry individuals and families to eat with us.

-Launch Hunger to Hope, our worker retraining program. Hunger to Hope will formally train homeless men and women in basic cooking skills that will be useful in the food service industry. We believe that by providing our residents will marketable skills, we can increase their likelihood of finding lasting employment and permanent housing. By addressing one of the major root causes of homelessness (unemployment), we will begin to make steps toward ending homelessness in Skagit County.

Thank you for partnering with us this year! We couldn’t do it without the support of our Friendship House community of donors and volunteers. We look forward to working with you in the new year and making lasting change in our community.