Mission
HomeHaven is a private not-for-profit corporation founded to provide its members with the opportunities, services, and confidence they need to remain active participants in the life of the community, living their lives to the fullest as they grow older in the comfort of their own homes.
Background
HomeHaven is a grass-roots non-profit organization created by vibrant and energetic people who wanted to remain in their own homes and communities and preserve their independence as they got older. They wanted to build a sense of community and social connection, to feel secure about services and service providers they paid for, to use their own talents to help one another, and to continue to grow and thrive in their own communities.
Inspired by Beacon HIll Village in Boston, HomeHaven is part of a national movement of villages -- about 100 of them across the country and another 120 in development. The Village-to-Village network shares information and advice on the web (www.vtvnetwork.org), and hosts annual national conferences. The villages are as different from one another as the communities that they support. They are community-supported and community-building organizations of people committed to working together for their own common good.
HomeHaven arose from the remarkable success of East Rock Village (ERV) in New Haven, which formally launched operations in the fall of 2010 with members from East Rock and several contiguous neighborhoods. Word spread informally and the idea caught fire.
Immediately East Rock Village got requests from people who did not live in the area. The organization extended their borders. It considered helping other neighborhoods develop their own villages, but some of them said, “It doesn’t make sense for us to have to go through four years of struggle and expense. Can’t you just extend your services to us?” And that made sense.
By the beginning of 2012, ERV had members from Hamden, North Haven, Westville, downtown New Haven, Wooster Square, West Haven, Orange, Woodbridge and Bethany. Some of those neighborhoods began to develop their own leadership and their own programs, while still being served by the ERV infrastructure. They began to look like villages themselves and the name, East Rock Village, did not seem to apply to them.
After an intensive planning process, the ERV board decided to change its structure from a neighborhood organization with increasingly porous borders to an umbrella organization that shelters and serves a number of neighborhood villages, villages-in-formation, and unaffiliated members who have not yet begun to coalesce into villages. Everyone has full access to the infrastructure – staff, office, insurance, legal structure, paid and volunteer service providers, newsletter, and common social, educational, and wellness programs – but the neighborhoods are free to develop their own personalities as they become full-fledged villages under the larger umbrella. That new organization is HomeHaven, Inc.
We believe that HomeHaven will bridge the competing goals of developing community, neighborliness, intimacy, and providing a broader organization that is efficient, accountable, and keeps costs low.
Today we have about 216 members in 152 households and we are building daily an increasingly sophisticated body of knowledge about what it means to support a community of seniors leading interesting and fulfilling lives. We have a growing array of programs and services, a growing group of volunteers and participants, and growing sense of excitement and interest in the greater community. Our members know that they need to make only one phone call to draw on all those resources and to enlarge the web of their connections.
Needs
HomeHaven has the following needs:
• Volunteers to drive, visit members, provide office support and other help with projects and events
• Expertise in the development of an effective and affordable marketing plan to attract a diversity of members. from different ethnic.economic and age groups
• Funds to support the general operation of the organization to keep fees affordable
• Increase the diversity of funding sources to include corporate sponsorship, fund raising events, grants, planned giving.
CEO Statement
I moved to New Haven in 1956. The first of what we now know as Baby Boomers were turning 10 years old. My first job was with the New Haven Council of Girl Scouts. It involved building the organization to meet the growing demand of this new population and to provide opportunities for young girls and young women to develop their social, emotional, civic, and leadership skills. The model relied on organizing and training volunteer leaders that would deliver programming to the Girl Scouts.
In 2011, the first Baby Boomers turned 65, including the initial cohorts of Girl Scouts in our area. A group of civic-minded New Haven residents established East Rock Village to create a social network and support system to help people age in place – in their own homes and in their own local communities. The founders modeled their Village after a successful effort in Beacon Hill (Boston), connected their Village efforts to a national Village movement, and hired me as the Executive Director.
Fifty five years after moving to New Haven, I found myself in set of organizational and leadership circumstances similar to the Girl Scouts. For example, both East Rock Village and the Girls Scouts were founded by affluent, educated and civic minded individuals. The Villages and the Girl Scouts use a model that engages volunteers to deliver programs and services. The Villages rely on retirees just as the Girl Scouts relied on stay-at-home moms. The Villages and Girl Scouts reach into every type of community and link local efforts to national movements and national support systems.
Unlike the Girl Scouts, the minimum age of a Village member is 55 with most members more than 70 years young. I believe that the most cost effective and beneficial way for a community to serve elder residents involves activating and organizing members, volunteers, neighbors and friends of our HomeHaven members. HomeHaven’s social network and supports enable members to live safe, healthy, active lives free from anxiety and insolation in the comfort of their own homes. And, HomeHaven creates great comfort for relatives and friends who live in other areas of the state or country, and who worry about their elderly family and friends.
I witnessed first-hand the impact of the Girl Scouts on individuals, families, neighborhoods, communities, and even an entire nation. I believe HomeHaven offers the same potential impact. I’m appreciative and excited to use my experiences to serve our growing population of elder residents. And, I’m proud to be a HomeHaven member.