Family Promise of Santa Clarita Valley is dedicated to helping our local homeless children and their families – and we couldn’t do that without the hundreds of volunteers who support our program.

Our nonprofit organization is supported by many compassionate leaders in our business community as well as service organizations such as the Rotary Club, the Optimists and our local Girl Scouts.

But at the heart of Family Promise is our incredible inter-faith community. More than 20 local congregations – synagogues and churches from across the valley -have come together to provide meals and friendship and temporary shelter for our homeless families.

In the two years we have been in operation, Family Promise of SCV has helped more than 20 local homeless families get back on their feet.

We do not treat homelessness as a religious issue but as a humanitarian issue. Our congregations put doctrine and theology aside to help neighbors who need it the most.

It’s not a matter of where or how you worship, but where your heart is. When you hear, “A priest, a rabbi and a preacher walked into the room,” it might sound like the beginning of a joke, but at Family Promise, it sounds like the beginning of something wonderful happening.

Each of our locally based volunteer congregations takes turns providing meals and sometimes overnight shelter to our families – as many as four families at a time. On a typical evening you might find volunteers playing games with a family, helping kids with homework, or simply sharing an evening meal together with them. Our volunteers offer hugs and laughter and sometimes just a listening ear.

We had a volunteer at one congregation who helped a single homeless mother find a job, and another volunteer who helped a homeless high school student fill out financial aid paperwork for college. Volunteers have treated families to a day at Magic Mountain or the movies or a batch of homemade cookies.

We know we have done incredible things to help our homeless families, but we often hear from our volunteers how much this experience has meant to them, as well.

If you are a part of a local congregation or service organization and would like more information about how you can get involved with Family Promise, we’d love to talk to you. We would love to add your congregation to our Family, and we always welcome more volunteers and congregational support.

In a real, meaningful, one-on-one way, you can make an enormous difference in the heart of a child and in the life of a family.

Please visit our website at www.FamilyPromiseSCV.org or contact our executive director, Chris Najarro, or me at (661) 251-2867.

Laurie Ender is the 2013-14 president of Family Promise SCV.