Young Adults from Foster Care Navigating the COVID-19 Pandemic COVID-19 has greatly impacted us all. It has brought emotional devastation, financial hardship, and relational isolation that will have lasting effects on our entire society. Our THRIVE young adults are unfortunately no exception. Firstly, like so many, most of them have lost their jobs which have […]
Social Distancing: It’s Nothing New Blog by Mike Carman Social distancing is the new and now-familiar term in our lexicon. But although the phrase may be recent, the concept is not. In Luke 17, we read about Jesus entering a village where he was met by ten men with skin diseases (leprosy). They called out […]
ReIgnite Hope Community Spotlight We recently celebrated the graduation of two of our Jobs for Life graduates, Marc Boucher and Robert Andrews, from a welding training program. The program, offered by Reignite Hope in Gardena, met weekly for four months. During that time, men and women learned welding skills as they were also taught Christian […]
Safe, Heard, and Known by Daniel Ramos (THRIVE Program, Resident Mentor) *** NOTE: Names have been changed for privacy *** One day I got the opportunity to head home to the THRIVE House earlier than usual. As soon as I got home, I was hungry and decided to see who was inside the house to […]
Mark & Sheila Sturgis Volunteers of the Month Mark and Sheila Sturgis have been faithful volunteers serving at the El Dorado Motel in Anaheim for 8 years almost every Friday evening. They spent their time loving the families that lived at the motel, a ministry launched by the church in 2011. For Mark, that looked […]
Coastal Community Fellowship Community Spotlight Recently one of our former-foster youth in our program got into a terrible accident that left him with a totaled car and minor injuries. That same day, he did on-boarding for a brand new job. He was absolutely devastated. Battling a lot of the toxic stress that would be typical […]
Kristen Huey Volunteer of the Month Whenever I think of the term “servant leader” Kristen Huey is the person who comes to mind. Kristen has been faithfully serving with OC United for over three years in multiple programs. If you know Kristen, you know she is a selfless hard worker who always puts others before […]
A Poolside Encounter by Mike Carman 38 years. That’s a long time to be sick. And with the passing of each torturous year, the prospect of getting better became that much more unlikely. And so he laid there, barely able to move his wretched and racked body, dependent upon others to meet his meager daily […]
Homelessness: What exactly are we aware of? Blog by Mike Carman Someone shared an article with me last week that reported the unspeakable. A woman in Los Angeles had a bucket of hot diarrhea poured over her by a mentally unstable man who was homeless. The article spoke of her experience and the resulting trauma […]
The Pumpkin Run 5K Story by Chris Baeza The sun is barely rising over the horizon. Runners are checking in to begin the festivities. It’s cold. You can see the cool chill in the air through each conversation. Families and single runners alike circle the event grounds before the race begins. One Grinch appears with […]