Holyrood Support - Amazing!

“The support has been amazing…

—beyond anything I would have expected,” is how Renee Iverson, Director of Supportive Housing, described the Holyrood community response to the GSS Horizons Pathways program.

From the beginning, the Holyrood Community League was onside giving GSS a vital line of communication to the neighborhood. Building on that base of support, a group of residents set up an informal committee to help the program and then its participants feel welcome to the area.

When GSS was starting to connect with the community, the group helped to arrange stakeholder engagement opportunities then helped locate venues for meetings. As a result, GSS was able to quickly get information out to Holyrood community members who really wanted to learn about the program. That led to successful events like the well-attended open house and barbeque held before the site opened. Amid the multiple tours at the event, visitors kept asking how they could help.

As new residents moved into the building over the fall, the community group gave each person a welcome care package. The packages included cards and drawings created and signed by children in the area. Some individuals were moving in directly from encampments making this welcoming spirit especially meaningful. That generosity continued. For Christmas, the group donated two large turkeys for a special dinner and a Christmas gift for every resident.

The Holyrood community has contributed in other ways to the quality of life at Horizon Pathways. The ‘touchdown’ spaces on the different floors were enriched through generous donations of books, and one area is now a fitness space thanks to a donated elliptical, treadmill, and a stationary bike.

This kind and giving spirit continues with a special example at the client barbeque this summer. Throughout the event, a neighbor who owns an ice cream truck, parked at the site and donated free popsicles to residents. She called that her birthday gift to herself.