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These days, it can seem like the world is going to … well, we’re a family newspaper so let’s just say the world seems to be going in a suboptimal direction.
War, famine, disease, poverty. If you’re fortunate, these are things that happen in other places, to other people. But if you have a heart, you’re no less saddened by that fact. And if you have a brain — if you read the news, if you look around — you know that many of your neighbors are struggling. They struggle in a wealthy part of a wealthy country.
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They needn’t struggle alone. And that’s where The Washington Post Helping Hand comes in. Helping Hand is our annual fundraising campaign for worthy charities that help people experiencing homelessness and hunger in the Washington area.
It’s an effort that stretches back to this column’s earliest days. When Bill Gold launched The Post’s daily local human-interest column in 1947, he encouraged readers to give to Children’s Hospital. It was a grass-roots effort back then, with readers sending in not just cash, but unused stamps (to help the hospital defray the cost of postage) and streetcar tokens (to give to patients’ families).
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In the years since then, including after Bill Gold handed this column over to Bob Levey, Post readers have donated literally millions of dollars to help others. Since 2004, when I took over from Bob Levey, readers have donated $12,409,792.90. (I added it up the other day.)
Nowadays, The Post selects three nonprofits and I highlight their work for three years. This holiday season I’ll be writing about — and encouraging readers to donate to — Bread for the City, Friendship Place and Miriam’s Kitchen. To donate to any of them online, visit posthelpinghand.com.
Bread for the City provides literal bread for its clients, last year distributing 1,790,181 meals from its locations on Seventh Street NW and Good Hope Road SE. It provided figurative “bread,” too: $50 gift cards for cash-strapped families to use as they saw fit.
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Close to 5,000 patients used Bread’s medical services in 2022, including its primary care, dental, vision and behavioral health clinics. An encouraging detail: More than 60 percent of Bread’s medical patients met their blood pressure targets.
Nearly 700 people visited the charity’s clothing room last year. And Bread for the City’s diaper bank distributed more than 546,000 diapers. In 2022, Bread for the City provided 2,150 clients with case management, the complex and vital support designed to help people improve their lives permanently.
To donate a check by mail, make it payable to “Bread for the City” and send it to Bread for the City, Attn: Development, 1525 Seventh St. NW, Washington, DC 20001.
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From its base in Tenleytown, Friendship Place helps people throughout the city. Last year, it served 4,479 people, including 750 veterans and 600 children. Its drop-in center on Wisconsin Avenue NW hosted 601 visitors, providing refuge from the streets and access to essentials such as food, mail and hygiene kits.
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The aim of drop-in centers such as Friendship Place’s is to establish relationships with potential clients that can lead to greater things. But many people who have been living on the streets are reluctant to make that first move. To reach them, Friendship Place has a street outreach team. Last year, it served 142 individuals.
Friendship Place helped usher 136 people into jobs, at an average wage of $18.10 an hour. It provides housing too, at such locations as the Brooks, a 50-unit building in Ward 3 for families, and La Casa, permanent supportive housing in Northwest for 43 men.
To donate by mail, send a check to Friendship Place, 4713 Wisconsin Ave. NW, Washington, DC 20016.
Last year, Miriam’s Kitchen served almost 84,000 hot, nutritious meals in its dining room in Foggy Bottom. That’s a 25 percent increase from 2021.
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But meals are just the tip of the iceberg. Miriam’s Kitchen helped just over 200 guests move into housing last year, the most in the organization’s 40-year history. Case managers continue to connect clients to needed services, help replace lost IDs, lobby the city for reform and maintain a speakers bureau so clients can share their own stories.
And Miriam’s boasts a 99 percent one-year retention rate for guests who have entered permanent supportive housing. That means it has successfully prepared its clients to trade the familiarity of the streets for the safety of a home.
To donate by check, write Miriam’s Kitchen, Attn: Development, 2401 Virginia Ave. NW, Washington, DC 20037.
Our Helping Hand campaign runs through Jan. 5. I hope we can count on your support.
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John Kelly’s Washington
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