City Church Literacy Grant at Work at Families Forward
It was seeing a sweatshirt from her alma mater that first connected Katie Brindley to Laura Smith. But when Katie learned that Laura was a literacy coordinator for Families Forward, emergency family shelter just three blocks from West Catholic Prep, she realized they had so much more to discuss. “Dave and I live just a few blocks from here,” says Katie, “and we never knew about this place!”
Families Forward is one of many services housed at the Kirkbride Center, the 17-acre campus of the old Institute of Pennsylvania Hospital on 48th between Market and Haverford. 65 families at a time stay at Families Forward, some for as long as 7 months, while they receive job training and help getting back on their feet.
Katie began helping Laura with projects around the center, and as their discussions deepened she began to wonder if there was a way to involve the wider church. “I knew City Church’s City team regularly supported literacy work in the neighborhood,” shares Katie, “and I wondered if we could be a blessing to their work.”
This past summer, Families Forward applied for and received a grant from the City Church for $11,000 to help create a literacy-rich environment for families at the center.
“Each family has their own room,” says Katie, “but it’s not a lot of a space for a family! The common rooms are pretty cold and clinical, given the building’s history as a psychiatric hospital. Our goal is to create a literacy-rich environment for these families, to make the common rooms into more like living rooms, and to tuck reading nooks stocked with culturally and developmentally appropriate books wherever we can.”
On Saturday, November 16, from 10 am to 1 pm, we plan to paint and put word art up in one of the common rooms, and we’re looking for a few volunteers to help. Please contact Katie Brindley at katie.brindley@cru.org if you are interested.
Families Forward is located at the Kirkbride Center on 48th between Market and Haverford.
The common room we’ll be transforming on Saturday, November 16.