Family Promise Transitions from Gala to Community Breakfast Format with Success

By Lynette Carrington
Family Promise recently held its first annual fundraising breakfast. In the eight years prior, it had held an annual gala, but the organization’s leaders felt 2018 was the right time to transition to a new type of event. Keeping the Promise — A Morning of Gratitude to benefit Family Promise of Greater Phoenix took place at Embassy Suites by Hilton in Scottsdale.
Family Promise of Greater Phoenix provides emergency shelter and social services to help families move from homelessness to employment, permanent housing, and self-sufficiency. Families served are in the Valley or may have moved here recently from other areas in the U.S. Utilizing day centers during daytime and its network of faith-based congregations for nighttime housing, families are assisted in getting back on their feet. An impressive 75 percent of families served by Family Promise of Greater Phoenix secure employment within 30 days of entering the program.
Pastor Jacob Boessling of Christ’s Greenfield Lutheran gave the invocation and Scottsdale Mayor W.J. “Jim” Lane also spoke of the importance of the work Family Promise is doing in the Valley. Syri Gerstner spoke to guests about how Family Promise has assisted her and her daughters, Kori and Kahlyn Gerstner. Event attendees learned that there will be new facilities added in both the West Valley and East Valley in the coming year to assist more families. In 2017, Family Promise assisted 108 families, including 397 individuals.
“We’ve been doing galas for eight years,” said executive director of Family Promise of Greater Phoenix Ted Taylor. “This year we decided it was more consistent with our values to do it simple. It’s been really hard. People are so used to a gala and that was their comfort zone. Everybody is doing galas and Family Promise is sort of a simple organization with a really pure mission of returning families to self-sufficiency.”
“We decided to do a breakfast and not do a gala and we didn’t know if you’d come, and you came,” said development director of Family Promise of Greater Phoenix Lisa Randall.
The community fundraising breakfast brought in 200 guests — more attendees than the annual galas had in the past.
Event sponsors for the inaugural breakfast included Winston Foundation, Gabrielle Lawrence, VGLE Consulting, CleanFreak, Neil Sutton, Maureen McGough Interior Design, LLC, Harnish Insurance Group and Valley Presbyterian Church.
familypromiseaz.org