ARTICLE: “Rotary Honors Residents: HHH Volunteer Services Director recognized with Vocational Services Award”, Tacoma News Tribune

Congratulations to our very own Lisa Heintz, Volunteer Services Director, for being recognized with the SH Rotary’s Vocational Excellence Award for Non-Profit/Non-Governmental service. Others recognized include Puyallup City Manager Ralph Dannenberg, teacher Amanda Kraft, and business owners Ken and JoAnn Scholz. You deserve it!

Rotary honors residents
By Andrew Fickes

Five exceptional people doing good things in the Puyallup, South Hill and East Pierce community were recognized for their contributions at the 2011 Puyallup South Hill Rotary Community Vocational Awards luncheon.

On Thursday, May 12, the South Hill Rotary presented awards in the areas of business, education, government and non-profit to Ken and JoAnn Scholz, Amanda Kraft, Ralph Dannenberg and Lisa Heintz, respectively.

“I was extremely impressed with the recipients,” said Karen Hansen, chairwoman of the South Hill Rotary awards selection committee. “They truly exhibited the qualities we were looking for in these awards.”

The Scholzes were recognized for their Snowshoe Evergreen choose and cut Christmas tree farm business based in McMillin, between Orting and Sumner. The farm is on Ken Scholz’s parents property, which he and his wife purchased in the mid-1970s.

“Ken and JoAnn are steadfast, community supporters with a commitment to supporting youth and truly believing in giving back and doing so on an annual basis,” said Jerome O’Leary, the Scholz’s son-in-law. “You could not ask for a better success story for two people who have worked hard and been successful and remained humble.”

Ken Scholz said he and his wife farm about 350 acres for Christmas trees, which includes land they lease to others. The wholesale cut tree business sells about 35,000 to 50,000 trees each season. The Scholzes are strong believers in education and contribute regularly to the Western Washington Fair Scholarship Foundation.

“We appreciate (this award) very much,” Ken Scholz said. “We will continue to uphold exactly what this award means.”

Kraft, who received the education award, was introduced by one of her longtime mentors, Guy Kovacs, principal at Edgerton Elementary School. Kraft is a fourth grade teacher at Edgerton.

“I have worked in the district for over 20 years and I can safely say that Amanda is one of the best educators I have had the privilege to work with,” Kovacs said. “She is the type of teacher that students remember for their entire lives for all the right reasons.”

While at the same time teaching, Kraft is also the Edgerton elementary assessment coordinator, student council coordinator, track coach and math relay coach. During the past five years, she has also helped bring Edgerton curriculum to state standards in the area of math.

Kovacs also touted Kraft for her extraordinary ability to organize school events targeted at raising money for the fight against lymphoma. Her hard work, he said, has made Edgerton the top fundraising school for lymphoma in the Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Alaska region.

“I don’t teach to be recognized,” Kraft said. “I became a teacher to impact lives. I appreciate Guy for always pushing me and inspiring me. I appreciate my husband and my mother is my biggest cheerleader.”

Dannenberg was introduced by Councilmember Rick Hansen.

“He filled a breach (at the city) when we really needed help,” Hansen said. “(The city) has moved light years ahead and that is owed to Ralph.”

Dannenberg, an employee of the city of Puyallup since 1998, was hired as city manager in October 2010.

“I feel blessed to be in Puyallup,” Dannenberg said. “I thank the council for selecting me as city manager. I look forward to coming to work every day.”

Heintz, a highly organized and take-charge leader, received the non-profit award for her active role as the director of volunteer services at Helping Hand House. Heintz said she helps connect individuals to different projects that they may want to work on.

Heintz has been in non-profit work for 11 years following eight years in the dental profession. Despite no four-year degree, Heintz said she has relied on hard work and talent to succeed in the non-profit field.

“I’m truly humbled to win this award and to know that hard work truly pays off and sometimes you don’t always need a college degree to succeed,” she said.

Reach Puyallup reporter Andrew Fickes at 253-841-2481 Ext. 313 or e-mail at andrew.fickes@puyallupherald.com.

Read more: http://www.thenewstribune.com/2011/05/18/v-lite/1669081/rotary-honors-residents.html#ixzz1MjCbTc5r

$70,000 more to help families in crisis – thank you Paul G. Allen Family Foundation!

This Puyallup Herald article features Helping Hand House and our partnership with the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation. Enjoy! (or read it here)

Puyallup-area homeless advocates get $70,000

Paul Allen Foundation grant should help about 125 families this year
Neil Pierson/of The Herald
Published: February 3rd, 2010 06:00 AM

A four-month-long waiting game concluded happily for Puyallup’s Helping Hand House on Jan. 26 when it received a $70,000 grant from the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation.

Helping Hand House, which has been assisting homeless families throughout East Pierce County for the past 25 years, was one of 66 non-profit groups in the Pacific Northwest to receive an Allen Foundation grant. The foundation, started by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen and his sister, Jo Lynn Allen, is donating $4.6 million this year, much of it to groups that assist low-income individuals and families.

Helping Hand House Executive Director Nola Renz said last week that the grant should help about 125 area families during the next year.
“The money will be used in our homeless prevention programs to assist more families who are at risk of eviction or utility shut off,” Renz said.

Receiving a grant from the Allen Foundation is a tough task, Renz explained, because only certain organizations are invited to apply. Helping Hand House applied for its grant last fall after meeting and talking with foundation officials.

Philanthropic efforts have been a part of the Allen Foundation’s mission for 20 years, said Bill Vesneski, the group’s evaluation, planning and research director. Helping Hand House stood out as a worthwhile cause because it’s widely known for excellent service, he said.

“They’ve had a very strong commitment as to measuring and monitoring their impact,” Vesneski said.

The money is especially welcome to Helping Hand House at a time when rising unemployment rates are putting more families at risk of living on the streets. The non-profit agency, which has helped more than 4,600 families in Puyallup, Sumner, South Hill and surrounding areas in the past 25 years, isn’t coming close to meeting demands. Two months ago, the group told Puyallup City Council members it had turned away more than 1,600 families during a six-month span of 2009.

“It has been an enormous challenge to continue to serve more families,” Renz said. “There’s limited resources so we’re always turning families away. That’s the discouraging part.”

The Allen Foundation focuses on a number of opportunities in its gifts, including community arts and music programs, youth education classes and job skill development courses.

The foundation has shifted its priorities to focus on victims of the national recession, Visneski said, and more groups like Helping Hand House are on the slate for grants in 2011.

“The goal is to kind of get the money into emergency relief, to get the money where it’s needed,” Visneski said. “We wanted to make sure we were doing work in Pierce County.”

Helping Hand House prides itself on being a lasting solution to homelessness because families who seek transitional housing opportunities learn to be financially sound and gain employment skills. The organization estimated at least three of four families that complete a transitional housing program don’t become homeless again.

“The exciting thing is that when families leave us they have a permanent solution,” Renz said. “They go into a situation where they have a home and a living-wage job.”

Article in Puyallup Herald re: HHH’s 25 years of serving families…

A good article from the Puyallup Herald – thanks much!

Helping Hand House focuses on homelessness: Organization is celebrating 25 years in East Pierce County

Neil Pierson / Published: June 10th, 2009 08:00 AM

“We’re into permanent solutions,” she reiterated. “We want to provide services and programs that will help families never be homeless again.”

Many of Helping Hand’s “graduates” will be attending the organization’s 25th anniversary party on June 11, Renz said. She thinks that’s a great chance for clients to learn from others who’ve been successful.

Officials with Helping Hand House don’t think in the short term when it comes to solving the problem of homelessness.

Helping Hand, which was founded 25 years ago by Puyallup resident Margie Addington and still bases its efforts in the East Pierce County region, is very clear on its mission: Ending homelessness through a variety of education, awareness and fundraising efforts.

“An overnight shelter is not a good solution for really any homeless people because you can’t do anything,” said Nola Renz, Helping Hand’s executive director for the past 12 years. “All you’re doing the next day is looking for the next place you’re going to stay that night.

“We decided to try to approach this to have a long-term impact on the families and really help them to be stable and self-sufficient when they left us,” she added.When Addington started Helping Hand in 1984 it was a “really small grassroots organization,” Renz said. The organization still wasn’t very big when Renz took over in 1997, providing 11 homes and turning away about 25 families per month because they didn’t have the money to help them.That began to change over the last decade. Helping Hand now has 60 housing units scattered throughout Puyallup, Sumner, Bonney Lake, Buckley, Eatonville and Orting. In 2000 and 2001, the organization benefited from two federal grants from the Department of Housing and Urban Development, which contributed heavily toward the creation of two transitional housing programs and the purchase of 21 homes throughout East Pierce County.

Grant money, however, doesn’t come along very often, Renz said. Helping Hand relies heavily on volunteer support and donations to accomplish its tasks.

Lisa Heintz, Helping Hand’s volunteer coordinator, said a number of churches, community groups and individual partners donate time and money, assist clients with skills training and even find gifts and make birthday cakes for homeless children. Students from Emerald Ridge High School, Rogers High School, Aylen Junior High School and Pacific Lutheran University are just some of the youth who’ve been involved with Helping Hand, Heintz said.

Renz estimates that 75 to 80 percent of the people who seek assistance through Helping Hand eventually wind up with permanent housing. Over 25 years, the organization has served over 4,600 families.

Officials attribute the high success rate to several factors. Case managers help adults achieve financial literacy, proper education and interviewing skills to find employment. They also help children stay in school.

“Our case management is very intensive,” Renz said. “The case manager meets with the family at least once a week, talks to them often every day.”

Providing help for kids is just as crucial as it is for adults, Renz said, because it helps end the cycle of homelessness. Helping Hand’s statistics show that homeless children are four times as likely to have developmental delays and get sick twice as often. Nearly half of homeless school-age children suffer from depression or anxiety.

Helping Hand cites numerous success stories. Heintz spoke about a woman who escaped a “worst of the worse” domestic violence situation with her ex-husband. She had two children under 3 years old, was diagnosed as clinically depressed and had nowhere to live.

Within four months of setting goals, the woman passed her high school equivalency degree test “with flying colors” and the same day obtained a job in the health care field, Heintz said. Within a year of coming to Helping Hand, she had saved enough money to pay for her own residence.

“To be able to see that whole cycle work itself out, it’s pretty incredible,” Heintz said. “When you’re working so closely with these families, you really do get to know them.”

Helping Hand has two different housing plans for clients. Emergency housing provides those in need with a 90-day solution while they work on long-term stability plans with a case manager. Transitional housing allows families a place to live for up to two years while they receive extensive training in financial, education and job skills.

In addition to its emergency housing and transitional housing programs, Helping Hand assists residents who have received eviction or utility shut-off notices by paying their bills.

To the Puyallup Herald…

Newsflash to the Puyallup Herald:

“Helping Hand House celebrates 25 years of sheltering the homeless in Puyallup and East Pierce County”

That’s thousands of families assisted over the last quarter century through our homeless prevention programs, hundreds hosted in our emergency and transitional housing – each one treated with dignity and respect. Each family member got a handmade quilt, donated by faithful friends in one of several churches or the Puyallup Valley Quilters.

Do we put people in dorms? Nope – we’d prefer to give people a home, and the help they need to make a life-long change. Help in budgeting, getting a job, a car, improving a credit score. A new start that when it looks hope’s gone forever.

So we’re a little different than your average homeless shelter…does that mean we don’t exist?