Open Door

Tuesdays-Wednesdays-Thursdays
9 am-Noon
505 W. Gurley, Prescott
(SW Corner of Gurley and Summit)
928-776-9294
Contact the Open Door Director at
opendoor@YavapaiCCJ.org

Open Door provides emergency assistance to people in our community who are struggling financially. We provide hot meals, food boxes, clothing, showers, a mail service and use of a phone, toys, diapers and toiletries; we also have gas and laundry vouchers available for the first two eligible people who apply each day we are open. We also provide school supplies for children and winter wear for both children and adults. A health worker periodically meets with our clients on Wednesdays. Our most essential service continues to be the financial voucher program to help prevent evictions and utility shut-offs. We cannot help others unless individuals in the community continue to help us.

Open Door provides a nonjudgmental, non-institutional environment where people are greeted in a personal and friendly manner, and receive hope and comfort on their journey. Most clients arrive here because of past physical or mental health crises, because of old age, single parenthood, or poor decision-making. We do what we can to help people get back as much self-sufficiency as possible. This includes a hot meal and work clothing, but it may also include making appropriate referrals and making information available about jobs and housing.

OPEN DOOR again participated in the Feinstein Million Dollar Challenge to Help Fight Hunger, collecting over 18,000 food items to be used in our kitchen for hot meals and to help stock our pantry. Feinstein Foundation donates a portion of $1 million dollars to agencies across the country during this March 1-Apr 30 fundraiser. The more that’s donated locally, the more Open Door receives from the foundation. Read more here....

Donations and the 1000
We welcome donations from individuals, clubs, congregations, schools and other organizations. We are usually in need of work clothing for men and women, canned food (especially meats, peanut butter, fruits and hearty soups), and toiletries like razors and diapers. We are almost entirely dependent on the goodwill of those in our community who are inspired to help those less fortunate, although we do apply for and obtain grants each year as well. We are trying to build up our program of direct-deposit giving. If we can find 1,000 people who are willing to donate $5 per month to help the hungry and homeless right here in Yavapai County, then Open Door’s finances will be established on a steady cash flow basis and we can help people more consistently, instead of having to suspend our voucher program whenever donations are low. Whenever we help people get back on their feet, we believe our whole community is strengthened. Click here to see our Open Door success stories for more detail on the lives of those who come to us. Poverty is not always what people think it is.	Help us today! All donations are tax-deductible, and we qualify as an eligible agency for the $400 annual Arizona state tax credit. (That’s only $33 per month!) Do it now before the next April 15th deadline comes around! You will get a letter confirming your tax-deductible annual giving at the end of each year. Click here to set up your for automatic contributions to Open Door. Open Door is more than just feeding those who are homeless; it’s helping people become self-sufficient. Open Door’s mission is to help the family where dad just got laid off and the rent is two weeks late. It’s the single mom who is working two jobs and needs help paying her electric bill to keep her children warm. It’s the senior citizen who needs help paying her prescription co-pays. It’s the guy who needs gas to get to work, and payday isn’t till next Friday. Open Door assists those people who need help, whether it’s food, clothing, a warm shower, a hot meal or just use of a telephone. Open Door is there when there just isn’t anyplace else to go.
In-kind Contributions and Volunteers We are generously supported by people in the community who bring us donations of food, clothing and financial contributions. Open Door had 360 active volunteers in 2007, who contributed 8,292 hours of service to help the impoverished, hungry and homeless people of our community. According to the NonProfit Times, a volunteer’s contribution equals $18.06 per hour and this constitutes an in-kind labor donation of approximately $149, 750.

Financial Assistance
A total of 950 clients was issued vouchers in the amount of $47,274.19 to help them through emergency situations. This included $25,887 worth of housing assistance to 217 people and $6,150 for utility assistance to 92 people. The remaining vouchers were used for transportation, gasoline, laundry and prescription assistance. Requests for financial assistance consistently outnumber available funds. However, even small amounts of money, such as $25 for gas so someone can get to work, will often get people back on their feet.

Open Door provides a nonjudgmental, non-institutional environment where people are greeted in a personal and friendly manner, and receive hope and comfort on their journey. In 2006 we served 14,000 hot meals; 6,780 food boxes; gave away over 15,000 pieces of clothing; helped prevent homelessness for 250 people; provided transportation assistance for 450 people; and helped 100 prevent utilities shut-offs. Yet, we had to turn many people away for lack of funds. Please help us help the most economically disadvantaged people in Yavapai County.

Maria is working 31 hours a week at a large department store, but they won’t give her more hours or she will qualify for benefits, which would cost her employer more. She has been a single parent for five years, and has a seven-year-old daughter and an eight-year-old son. She pays her rent on time and is largely self-sufficient, even though the family has no cash to speak of. She brought her children to our Fair Start project, which provides school supplies for low income kids. Without education the cycle of poverty continues. We provided her children with a new backpack each, full of school supplies for the coming year, as well as winter jackets, hats and mittens. Now her children have a more equal opportunity to learn alongside other, better-off children.

One single father in his 40s became homeless after his wife and the mother of his two preschool children suddenly left, draining the bank account. He came to Prescott and to Open Door in December when his car broke down here. He and the children had been living in their car. We helped him get a hotel room for a week. During that time, he and the children came to Open Door for meals and warm clothing. He was able to obtain employment and now the girls are in school again, and taking free music lessons. “Things have gotten a lot better for me,” he said. “The way I got helped the most was the words of encouragement and hope [the Open Door voucher-writer] used when she spoke to me.”

Another client came in with her daughter and granddaughter. In all, three adults and three children were living in a trailer in Prescott Valley. In this case, the husband suddenly disappeared after 30 years of marriage, taking the new mortgage equity loan with him, and leaving the family with a double mortgage. He had been bringing in enough to pay for all their bills. His wife had left her job due to health problems the week before he left. One adult of 19 had a part-time minimum wage position, and the other adults all scrambled to get full-time work, but they couldn’t pay their electric bill, and the utility company was about to shut them off. We helped them keep the lights and heat on for another month, while they worked to get new sources of income. The grandmother said of Open Door, “This place is a life-line. It is a worthy cause and a huge help to the community.”

A woman born in Guatemala married an American and went to California; her husband died soon after her first child was born. She moved to Prescott 14 years ago, but was self-sufficient until a year ago, when she came to Open Door for help because she lost her job. She then had to have gall bladder surgery, was unable to work, and became homeless. Open Door helped her and her children get a month’s shelter at a hotel. She now has a job at the motel and she lives on the premises with her three children, now 16, 14 and 7. “Open Door still helps with food,” she said, “but we are much better off than we were.”

A group of five Vietnam veterans, all homeless, share a camp together in the woods outside of Prescott. Some of them have tried and failed to get benefits with the Veteran’s Administration, or they just gave up on the paperwork. We have helped them with the cost of repairing an artificial leg, with propane to keep them warm, and with warm jackets, blankets and bedrolls. Three of them are well enough to walk the four miles into town to do day labor, starting at 5.30 am. They share what resources they have with each other. Open Door currently has a new volunteer veteran who helps other vets with the VA paperwork maze.

Two parents were both working full-time to provide for their three children, but neither had health insurance. They had never asked any agency for help, but when they both came down with pneumonia and were hospitalized for two weeks, they came to us for help with the rent bill and the water bill. We helped with both, and we have never seen them again. When people don’t need to come back to Open Door – because our help helped them get back on their feet – we consider that a major success.

A woman we shall call Susan was severely abused when she was a child, and later in life became severely mentally ill. She has a case worker at the local county mental health clinic, and she receives $600 a month in disability payments from the federal government. However, her rent is $500 a month – which is fairly inexpensive for the Prescott area right now. She comes to Open Door almost every week to eat and get a food box. We also helped with some prescription co-pay costs when she had a serious ear infection. “Everyone here is very kind,” she said.

One elderly man was working under the table at a construction job for cash; when his arm was mangled in a work-site accident, his employer refused to help him with the Workman’s Compensation paperwork, and refused to acknowledge that he had even been there. He and his 15 year-old son were asked to leave when they couldn’t pay the $300 a month ground rent on their RV. Arizona’s health insurance plan for low income citizens, AHCCCS, helped him with the medical costs, but he and his son needed food, clothing and gasoline to drive back to Tennessee, where his relatives lived. We helped with all three needs. “Open Door has been a godsend to me during this terrible time in my life,” he said.

Old Cowboys need Love, Too. Read a heartwarning success story of support by Open Door to an "old time cowboy" who needed a little help.

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Last updated on 2/16/2007
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