Seaford Community of Hope is a Multiplying Good One in a Million Award recipient. They are among the millions of people who are putting others first and using service as a solution to the problems we're facing. Read their story below then nominate someone who's making a difference during this unprecedented time!
One in a Million Award recipient: Seaford Community of Hope
Where they are multiplying good: Seaford, Delaware
How they are multiplying good: They are One in a Million. The Seaford Community of Hope is a project developed in partnership with the Casey Foundation, Children’s and Families First and the Sussex County Health Coalition. The mission is to help children facing adversity on their journey to adulthood. We use proven methods to help families raise their children so they can flourish. Spearheaded by Dr. Julius Mullen Sr., Jeffrey T. Benson Jr., MBA and Kathryn Burritt, MS., Seaford Community of Hope leverages cross-agency and cross-community collaboration in Seaford to reduce the occurrence of maltreatment, decrease the number of children entering foster care; and decrease re-entry to care for children who have experienced foster care. Our goal is to build a Community of Hope that will support community resilience in Seaford in order to reduce child abuse and neglect and related child welfare involvement. We have spent the past year working with stakeholders to identify our community of focus, building connections with key stakeholders, and gathering feedback and data to help us shape our plan. Through these efforts, we have conducted surveys via email, and social media, along with focus groups with youth, adults and other stakeholders within the community. For the Christmas holiday, The SCOH leveraged their community relationships (Children & Families First, The Casey Foundation, Sussex County Health Coalition, The Seaford School District and Walmart) to distribute $25,000 worth of gifts and household supplies to children and families in the Seaford community. This event begun the process of creating "The Seaford Community of Hope". During this COVID-19 pandemic, SCOH has been very aggressive in serving the families in the Seaford area. Working very closely with The Seaford School District, Jeff volunteers his time once a week to help serve students lunch in the community. To date, the schools food trucks have served over 75,000 meals to their students since the school shutdown. For the Seaford Community of Hope residents, Jeff, Julius and Kathryn once again partnered with both local and national community agencies (Children & Families First, The Casey Foundation and The Delaware Community Foundation) to give $2,000 in retail gift cards as well as pay $8,500 worth of rents to 104 residents in the Meadowbridge Apartment Complex. They also hosted a Covid-19 screening/testing at this site for all of the residence as well. Due to the school closures, all of Delaware's graduating seniors have missed out on so much including a postponed graduation. SCOH got with other Seaford community leaders to highlight their graduating seniors. They were able to raise $2,500 in less than 48 hours to purchase yard signs. The group displayed and hosted a mini drive-thru parade on May 23rd in their local community for all to view.
