[Hope House of Sedona is a ministry of The Church of the Red Rocks UCC]

Greetings to all,

I pray everyone is staying healthy during the continuing pandemic. We have some extremely exciting Hope House news to relay to you: the $336,000 grant funds have been released! For that to happen, the environmental review of the property had to be completed. That was done at the end of May. We started working on Hope House a year and a half ago, so this is thrilling news to all who have worked so hard to make this a reality in Sedona. We received the call yesterday afternoon that HUD had released the funds for Hope House, so we can now move forward with the next steps of the project.

First, we will purchase the property from the City. They had been kind enough to purchase the property for us and hold onto it until we received the funds. Once that transfer is complete, we will send out our Request for Proposal to three bidders for the first factory-built home. We will select the builder who best fits our goals for Hope House. Per the grant, we must have our doors open no later than June 2021.

Joining us in this endeavor are two new members to the Hope House Board of Directors: Ellen Simon and Ted Kohan. They bring new skills to the board and much enthusiasm for the project. We are happy to have them.

I want to express another “thank you” to Oak Creek Storage in the VOC. They have generously donated storage space in their facility. As more people are giving donations, this has been most welcome. We were keeping things in our spare bedroom and it was becoming a bit unwieldly. We are grateful to have a clean, large, and secure space nearby.

As you know, I always mention fundraising! We recently received an anonymous donation of $5000, for which we are most grateful. We will soon be establishing a fundraising goal to finish the first house. In the meantime, we always welcome donations. You may give on-line at hopehouseofsedona.org; just press the “donate” button. You may also send contributions to Hope House of Sedona, 54 Bowstring Dr., Sedona, 86336.

Stay well and thank you for your on-going interest in Hope House. We need this housing more than ever with so many lost jobs.

Blessings,
Gale Lothrop