346 W8. Reflective Journal

346 W8. Reflective Journal

[Name]

[Institution]

[Date]

346 W8. Reflective Journal

Overall Mission & Purpose of LifeNet4Families

LifeNet4Families is a system of care for the needy individuals of Broward Country located in Southeastern Florida. The main goal of LifeNet4Families is to address community needs and to serve the families and individuals in crisis. It also aims to provide relief for disaster relief of the communities in Florida and is also focus on the medical researches to provide new medical facilities.

The target community is facing the issue of homelessness, are in extreme poverty and have food insecurities. LifeNet4Families wants to make the community of Broward country prosperous and wants to minimize the crisis that this locality is experiencing. The main objective of the organization is to reduce hunger. It works to provide stability to the client by providing them clothing, haircut, on-site shower facilities, referral, emergency financial help, counselling job readiness and access to mailing address usage.

LifeNet4Families is working in a partnership with other local organizations that are struggling to eradicate poverty and hunger. The partners are the Faith Center, First United Apostolic Church, Feeding South Florida, and many more. By the help of these partner organizations, the LifeNet4Families is able to reach the people who are in need of foods. The organization also work in collaboration with supermarket and local restaurant.

Target Population of LifeNet4Families

LifeNet4Families is situated in the heart of Broward Country and is helping individuals and families in crisis. It is serving 5000 families and individuals in that area. The target population is having food security, poverty and homelessness (Lifenet4families.org, n.d).

I interviewed Carolina Lopez, the director of development and community relations in LifeNet4Families and she told me that over 2000 individuals in the locality do not know where they are going to stay for the night and what they are going to eat. So LifeNet4Families provides shelter and food to such individuals.

She told me further that many of the people who get assistance from LifeNet are the survival of domestic violence and some are the victim of physical or sexual abuse. A number of clients have to repay debt and have no jobs. Some of the clients are studying in colleges and have to source of income. Many of the clients have no food security and cannot adjust enough money to buy home. So LifeNet is there to help out the most deserving candidate and let them hope for the best.

The demography of the people getting assistance from LifeNet demonstrates that 70 per cent of the clients are males and 62 per cent of the social services are provided to homeless people. 36 per cent of them are white, 11 per cent are Hispanic, 8 per cent others and 1 per cent are the Hispanics and majority of the care receivers are black and the make 38 per cent of the target population (Lifenet4families.org, n.d).

Accessibility- ease of access and insurance compensation mechanism of LifeNet

Carolina Lopez reveals that the LifeNet is open 7 days a week and 365 days a year. Its operating hours are from 8:00 am to 11:00 am and on Sundays, it remains open from 11 am to 12:0 pm. So an individual can directly visit the office, contact a volunteer or send the staffs an email for getting assistance.

LifeNet receives support from various donors and it provides very careful stewardship of those funds. Heritage insurance delivers clothing to LifeNet4Familisea and food insurance programs of different donors helps this charity foundation to fulfill its goal.

However, a scholarship award is provided by LifeNet to homeless people in the region and this scholarship is funded by Allison and Andy Cagnetta that is also a charitable organization. The scholarship is given to homeless students in high schools who are struggling economically as well as academically. The mechanism for allocation of this fund is that LifeNet will check the academic background of the individual and that individual can serve his or her community by volunteerism (Unitedwaybroward.org, n.d).

The other eligibility criteria for the scholarship are that the grantee should be a US citizen, having 2.8 minimum CGPA and have enrolled in an undergraduate program. The individual is considered homeless if he or she fulfills the criteria given for homelessness in the McKenney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act. The grantee has to volunteer at LifeNet for five hours and theses hours need to be completed before the dateline of the scholarship form (Unitedwaybroward.org, n.d).

Funding Mechanisms of the Program

Foods are directly donated to LifeNet and these are further distributed among the needy people. Financial assistant is received from donors, individual or organizations and volunteer distribute those funds based on needs of the grantees (Lifenet4families.org, n.d).

Perceived Effectiveness of Services

LifeNetFamilies has been providing services to the homeless and needy individuals of Broward Country for more than 30 years. It has started with the aim of distributing candies and peanut butter among the street people and developed into an organization that is supporting more than 5000 homeless now. It is providing more than 90,000 meals to its clients per year (Lifenet4families.org, n.d).

In accordance with the US Department of Agricultural policy and Federal law of the country, this organization is not allowed to discriminate on the bases of color, race, sex, ethnicity, age, nationality or disability. Thus it is providing service to whoever is in need of food or shelter in the community (Lifenet4families.org, n.d).

The organization is able to feed thousands of needy families in the locality and has involved hundreds of volunteers to serve the people of the community. It is assisted by many donor agencies and with the help of all these the organizations is able to eradicate poverty from the community.

References

(2019). Lifenet4families.org. Retrieved 11 July 2019, from http://www.lifenet4families.org/portal/documents/1229579/f8674bc8-d1a1-4c20-b9d7-8ded383ce3b9

(2019). Unitedwaybroward.org. Retrieved 11 July 2019, from https://www.unitedwaybroward.org/sites/default/files/documents/Annual%20Reports/13-14%20Annual%20Report.pdf