The single, middle-aged woman had moved from a shelter into a Section 8 apartment. She had one bed and one folding chair.

Last Saturday a truck and two station wagons with two men and four women arrived at the apartment and began to unload a bureau, a couch, two end tables, a kitchen table with four chairs, bedding, dishes, pots, pans and cutlery.

“Within 15 minutes the place was transformed,” according to Diane Mack of Bloomfield, one of the founders of A Hand Up, Inc., “and we were all transformed, too, by the woman’s joy and by knowing that A Hand Up had truly given a hand up. We realized that what had happened in her life – multiple losses of family members and other sorrows – could happen to anyone of us. The woman had applied for Section 8 housing after a stay at the Institute of Living, had battled alcohol, had found a job, finally gotten an apartment and through the Community Renewal Team (CRT) we were notified of the situation.”

How Did A Hand Up Begin?

Robin Gilmartin, a clinical social worker at the VA and also of Bloomfield, begins the story. “We were sitting around our kitchen table,” she says, “about a year and a half ago – Diane, who works for Mass Mutual, Rosemary Cleaves, a retired social worker, Jane Arnold and I. We were four women and a dog, “Jack,” our part border collie, part lab.

“We had been getting together once a month, trying to come up with a project which would make a difference. We thought of starting a special kind of thrift shop. Then one of us suggested cooky baking or marketing Rosemary’s low-carb, high protein pasta. None of those ideas seemed the answer.

“We knew that we could not try to provide housing or food or employment for people who had been homeless – other agencies do that – but then we realized there was a gap – and that gap is, as our brochure states, ‘to help people transition from homelessness to independent living.’ We wanted to distribute donated goods to help people in need establish new homes.”

And so they began, slowly at first, collecting in Diane’s and Robin’s Bloomfield garage whatever surplus household items – beds and blankets, dishes and dressers – that friends and neighbors donated. Another colleague, Christine Pina of West Hartford, was added to their steering committee, now totaling five women.

Rosemary, the group’s president, remembers that their first deliveries were made last September. “So far,” she says, “we have delivered goods to Bloomfield, East Hartford, Hartford, Windsor, West Hartford and New Britain. We work closely with CRT, and their social workers inform us of what each client needs. And it’s important to know that our efforts are ‘one time only’ – in other words, we can only supply a client once.”

“Adopt a List” is one of the schemes A Hand Up uses to engage volunteers. Here’s how it works: CRT provides a list of needs to A Hand Up, describing what one formerly homeless person, now moving into housing, requires to set up housekeeping. The list is given to one of our volunteers who then “adopts” the list, collecting from friends and neighbors and family the items A Hand Up will deliver.

“Horton,” a truck donated to A Hand Up, stands in the Bloomfield driveway, ready to make deliveries when CRT provides the address where the household items are to be taken. Other volunteers help load, drive and unload. Recently, for instance, supplies were unloaded at the apartment of a longtime homeless man, age 71, who has overcome a drug habit and was able to secure some of the needed items himself for his new living quarters. A Hand Up supplied kitchen chairs and a table as well as cutlery and towels.

“We take almost anything in good condition,” according to Rosemary, “except pillows – those have to be new.”

Statistics in A Hand Up’s brochure describe the need in the Greater Hartford area. For instance: 

• Nearly 1,500 people are homeless each night in spite of the fact that 64 percent have some kind of income 
• Of those homeless people, 40 percent are white; 30 percent are African-American; 30 percent are Hispanic; 10 percent are children; and one-third are female, two-thirds male. 
• The average age is 37 years.

A Hand Up also has its own needs: more volunteers to help collect and deliver household goods, more home furnishings and a volunteer grant writer/fund raiser. Financial contributions are sought to supplement expenses currently being met by the new agency’s founders.

So remember that sturdy couch you no longer need? Or that set of Aunt Milly’s dishes that never come out of the cupboard? Or those pots and pans taking up shelf space? And are you looking to help a worthy cause?

To learn more about A Hand Up, go to: www.ahandupinc.org or email:

AHandUp2005@sbcglobal.net.

To receive a brochure about the organization or to make a contribution write to:

A Hand Up, Inc.
P.O. Box 270323
West Hartford, CT 06127.

Reprinted with permission of the Bloomfield Journal