Hope Cottages Fund Raising off to Great Start

Learn how you can help homeless women and children by sponsoring Hope Cottages.

The goal of $65,000 to build two cottages to house homeless women and children is getting closer for Hope Cottages.

Shirley McCutchen with Hope Cottages, a division of House of Hope, joined KHOZ’s “Around the Table” on Wednesday to talk about their fundraising efforts and plans for expansion.

“I think we worked on it five to six years before we actually got it up from the paper up to the ground,” McCutchen said, “And we have a lot of homeless women and children with no place to stay… that were not necessarily in unsafe places but needed a fresh start in their life and needed a chance.”

At the time McCutchen was the Homeless Liaison for the Harrison School District and knew firsthand how difficult it was to find places for these women and children to go.

“We started basically with no money, but a dream,” McCutchen said.

Today Hope Cottages has a goal of finishing a handicap accessible cottage and building a new, larger cottage that can house a woman and several children. McCutchen said the current cottages are comparable to a large hotel room and don’t allow for a larger family to live there.

McCutchen says it is a “work of the heart” as all the staff for Hope Cottages are volunteers and no money donated goes toward salaries. Currently Hope Cottages has been able to raise about $20,000 and they feel like they are well on their way to their goal.

Most recently they hosted the “Dinner of Hope” earlier in December which raised a portion of the $20,000 they currently have for the project. McCutchen said the event featured a great speaker as well as “lots of fun and laughs.”

Starting in January Hope Cottages will be accepting sponsorships from individuals at different levels including the $500 per month “Hope Sponsor”, the $250 per month “Hope Co-Sponsor”, and the $100 per month “Friend of the Cottage” sponsorship. All the money from these sponsorships will go toward the expenses of an individual cottage including insurance, utilities, and upkeep.

She says that people need to know they can also donate food, other supplies, and their time if they can’t afford one of the sponsorships. For more information about Hope Cottages visit hopecottagesharrison.org and check out their Facebook page.