13 Oct My Father’s Arrows, Inc.

Posted at 20:55h in 2024, Family, My Father's Arrows, Nonprofit by

my father’s arrows, inc.

Rolling on to a Bigger Vision

Grant Year: 2024 | Focus Area: Family | Grant Amount: $100,670 | Grant Status: Complete

The mission of My Father’s Arrows is to provide children who have been impacted by trauma with safety, nurturing, and stability that helps them grow into healthy, thriving adults. The founders, who had decades of experience as foster-adoptive parents and experience working with special needs children, recognized that instability in placements and lack of long-term connections for the children contributed to decreased school performance, increased negative behaviors, overall poor choices, and lack of support for them as young adults. In response, My Father’s Arrows was founded in 2014 to reach foster-adoptive families and aged-out youth in the community. In 2017, My Father’s Arrows opened a therapeutic residential program for boys and girls aged 0-17 years. The children stay in the program for a minimum of a year or until they can be safely reintegrated into a family, they have found an adopted family, or they are prepared to be safely launched into their young adult independent living. The residential campus, located in northern Santa Rosa County, includes a year-round K-12 trauma-informed school and a farm which provides healthy produce and therapeutic access to animals.

OVERVIEW OF THE PROPOSED PROJECT

My Father’s Arrows is currently driving very old, high mileage, used vehicles, and the repair costs have become extensively high because of the age and wear on the vehicles. They need safe, reliable, fuel-efficient vehicles to transport the children to their medical appointments, therapies, visitations, and recreational activities. Supplies are also transported to My Father’s Arrows and to foster-adoptive families and aged-out youth in the community. Historically, the organization has driven 12 and 15 passenger vans, but the children they serve do better in smaller groups since there is less noise, more room to move, and easier access to their trusted adult. My Father’s Arrows is currently working at capacity and has a long waiting list. They have purchased adjacent land and are planning for expansion of their facilities. As they assess their vehicle needs, they also need to consider their near-term plans for growth. IMPACT 100 funds will be used to purchase three new 8-passenger SUVs, displaying both IMPACT 100 and My Father’s Arrows logos.

EXPECTED IMPACT ON THE COMMUNITY

My Father’s Arrows is committed to bringing stability, safety, and a nurturing environment to children with complex trauma histories. Providing safe, reliable transportation is a significant part of meeting this commitment to these children. The children will be more comfortable in the new vans where the size is more appropriate to their needs. Road trips to appointments will become an opportunity for healing, and not a stressful situation. The new vehicles will eliminate the issues that surface when a vehicle breaks down, which result in the children being late for appointments or missing them altogether. Reliable vehicles will also ensure that supplies can be consistently delivered to foster families and to aged-out youth in a timely manner. The new vehicles will enable My Father’s Arrows to have appropriate transportation available to move supplies as they are needed. The safety features of the new vans will increase the safety level of transportation. With new vehicles, maintenance and fuel costs should decrease substantially which will allow My Father’s Arrows to allocate more funds to the other needs of the children.

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