New Hope for Families opens new location to serve more children and families
New Hope for Families cuts ribbon on new campus during Week of the Young Child
New Hope for Families hosted a ribbon cutting ceremony on Thursday, April 7, 2022, at its new facility at 1140 S. Morton Street. After brief remarks, New Hope leaders and local dignitaries posed for pictures, and invited guests to inspect the two newly constructed buildings.
New Hope children cut a ribbon to celebrate the opening of their new classrooms (Download full size)
Speakers included Bloomington Mayor John Hamilton; Andrew Allard, Senior Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of the Indiana University Credit Union, and President of the New Hope for Families Board of Directors; Sue Shindell, Chair of New Hope for Families’ Capital Campaign Steering Committee; and Emily Pike, Executive Director of New Hope for Families.
“This is an exciting moment for New Hope and for the community at large,” said Pike. “These buildings will significantly expand our community’s capacity to provide emergency shelter and supportive services for local children and families impacted by homelessness, and triple the number of seats in New Hope’s early childhood care and education program. This new facility should be a point of pride for our entire community.”
“We broke ground exactly one year ago, during the 2021 Week of the Young Child. It is especially fitting that we are now preparing to open our new facility, on the eve of Week of the Young Child’s Family Friday.”
"New Hope provides an extremely valuable service to our community, providing family shelter options and services for early childhood care and education," said Hamilton. "The ribbon-cutting event for the new facility is the culmination of many years of hard work. I commend the New Hope staff, board of directors, and many volunteers for their dedication and commitment to Bloomington's children and families."
A New Home for New Hope
The new New Hope for Families administration and child care building at 1140 South Morthon Street. (Download full size)
New Hope’s new campus (located at 1140 S. Morton Street) features two newly-constructed buildings, four age-specific outdoor classrooms, a playground, and parking accommodations.
New Hope’s family shelter building will provide emergency shelter and case management services for up to 12 families at a time, a 70% increase over its current limit of 7 families at a time. Each family will have a private bedroom and bathroom, and access to a shared kitchen, dining room and living room, and access to a playground, food pantry and laundry facilities. The building also includes a small apartment for a live-in site supervisor.
The new child care and education building includes four age-specific classrooms that will accommodate a combined total of up to 48 children from birth through age 5; this represents a 200% increase over its current capacity of 16 children. Each of the new classrooms is directly connected to its own age-appropriate outdoor classroom. The building also features a multi-purpose room, a sick room, a commercial kitchen and the agency’s administrative offices. Furnishings in the education building have been carefully selected for safety, durability, educational quality and age-appropriate accessibility.
Timeline for the Move
New Hope for Families is preparing to move to its new campus in stages. New Hope’s administrative offices will move into the new space starting April 19. The child care and education programs will begin at the new facility on April 26. Finally, New Hope expects to begin providing shelter to families at the new location in late May.
A public open house event is planned for New Hope’s new location on Saturday, May 14. Details to follow.
Growing New Hope
Local volunteers established New Hope in 2011 on property then-owned by Bloomington Hospital, becoming the community’s only emergency shelter specifically serving families experiencing homelessness. In 2015, New Hope added an early childhood care and education program to enable parents to get back to work and prepare children for success in school.
After the hospital announced plans to relocate, New Hope’s board of directors made a decision to relocate and expand in order to better meet the needs of the community, and to provide uninterrupted services for clients.
“New Hope’s relocation and expansion was funded through our ongoing $5.75M Growing New Hope capital campaign,” explained Allard. “Leadership for Growing New Hope has been provided by a board-appointed Capital Campaign Steering Committee, established in 2019, and a more recently formed Capital Campaign Cabinet. The hardworking volunteers on the Steering Committee and Cabinet are to be commended for their outstanding work.”
Shindell remembers the agency’s humble beginnings. “Ten years ago, a small group of dedicated volunteers and compassionate community leaders resolved to create a resource for families who weren’t being served in our community. We started out serving just three families at a time, and we knew the work was important, but we couldn’t have imagined what it would grow into. Now, thanks to an outpouring of support from the community, New Hope will be able to provide emergency shelter for up to 12 families at a time and early childhood care and education for up to 48 children at a time.”
In addition to Shindell, Capital Campaign Steering Committee members include Don Adams, Chris Cockerham, John Hurlow, Liz McCrae, and John VanderZee.
In March of 2021, New Hope established a Capital Campaign Cabinet in order to provide additional fundraising support. The Cabinet is composed of Steering Committee members Adams, Cockerham, Hurlow, McCrae, and Shindell, plus Dan Peterson (chair), Jon Barada, Mark Kruzan, Gigi Larmour-Goldin, Darby McCarty, Sylvia McNair and Regina Moore.
About New Hope for Families
Currently located at 301 West 2nd Street, New Hope is the only place in Monroe County where families with children can find emergency shelter together. Pike explained, “This mission is important to our community because we believe families are stronger together and no family should have to separate to receive vital services.”
In addition to emergency shelter and case management services, New Hope offers nationally accredited childcare and early learning programs.
“Access to affordable child care enables parents to get back to work. Access to high quality early learning programs such as ours helps to prepare kids to succeed in school and in life,” explained Pike.
New Hope’s early childhood care and education program is rated Paths to Quality Level 4 by the state of Indiana and nationally accredited by the National Association for Family Child Care. This accreditation is rigorous and is achieved by only 6% of licensed family child care providers in Indiana.
Research has shown that access to high quality early education is key to making a positive, long-term impact on children and the communities where they live. This increase in early childhood care and education programs addresses our community’s unmet need for these services.
Week of the Young Child
The Week of the Young Child is an annual celebration sponsored by the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC), the world's largest early childhood education association, with nearly 60,000 members and a network of 52 Affiliates. The purpose of the Week of the Young Child is to focus public attention on the needs of young children and their families and to recognize the early childhood programs and services that meet those needs.