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Assistance League to Mark 40 Years of Partnering on Charitable Programs
poseful but is also often due to poverty, mental illness, addiction or other factors that prevent parents from being able to provide for their children even though they want to. In a practical sense, this can mean a community rallying to gather furniture and clothing necessary to provide adequate care for a child whose
parents can afford housing but not furnishings.
Though much of the help that the FAMs engaged by Promise686 provide is financial or logistical, Cook emphasized that it is often a feeling of support and community that makes the biggest difference for parents. “At the end of the day more important than the meal that is brought is the person’s presence at the door. The sense of not being in isolation during this journey, that is big,” he said.
The gravity of the situation for children and caregivers engaged in the child welfare system can’t be overstated. Conditions within the foster care system produce symptoms of PTSD on par with those of combat veterans. Statistically speaking, children who age out of the foster care system without being adopted are far more likely to suffer from addiction and depression, and enter the prison system as adults.
Promise686 is headquartered in a century-old farmhouse on Holcomb Bridge Road. With a staff of only 17 employees and an annual budget of $3,000,000 for 2022, the organization has managed to expand its reach beyond Gwinnett County and across the nation. It currently works with 1,017 churches in 25 states, and in a given year it serves around 7,000 children through its ministry.
In the next two years Promise686 hopes to expand to meet the needs of 10,000 children. It will also be relocating to a new building with amenities that will better suit its needs.
Cook and the team at Promise686 hope to build an infrastructure that can eradicate obstructions that prevent prospective parents from choosing adoption and foster care. They seek to educate and deputize churches and their congregations at a local level to provide immediate and lasting support to families and children.
Beneficiaries of their services can be members of those churches or simply part of the communities around them. Additionally, preventing the removal of children from their biological families adds an element of protection that can intercept trauma and negative outcomes before they ever occur.
Cook spoke of the challenges prospective parents face when choosing adoption or foster care. “I see this space as a zero-entry pool, and yeah there’s a deep end. We have made the mistake in our country of identifying potential adoptive parents and putting them in that deep end of the pool and saying, ‘Oh and while you’re treading water can you hold this child and care for it?’ We have lost parents really quickly and that has really hurt children. The attrition rate of foster parents in America is about 50%, but when a team from a local church wraps around them, the retention rate goes up to 90%.”
While the systemic problems Promise686 tackle daily are huge and often overwhelming, to the children touched by their efforts it can mean the world.
“It’s amazing what our community can do in rallying around families who are the first line of defense for a child,” Cook said. “The dream for our organization is that we would continue to grow and serve more children, and the hope is that we would be super strong in Gwinnett County and Peachtree Corners.”
Those interested in learning more and getting involved can visit promise686.org/fams or sign up for the upcoming Promise Race, a mission-focused, experiential 5K in Johns Creek on April 23. More information and registration can be found online at promise686.org/race. ■
Andy Cook
The Assistance League of Atlanta this year marks its 40th anniversary of charitable programs in the metro area. Partnering with many schools, hospitals and other nonprofits, the group serves around 50,000 people a year. And since 2016, it’s all been organized at its headquarters in Peachtree Corners.
Known for its Attic Treasures thrift shop in Chamblee, the Atlanta group is one of 120 nationwide chapters of the California-based Assistance League. Members of the local chapter — currently numbering around 250 — pay $75 annual dues, of which $25 goes to the national organization for training, support and marketing. All chapters determine their local partnerships, but also participate in the national’s signature program, Operation School Bell, which provides school clothes to students in need.
“As you can imagine, Atlanta, as a major metropolitan area, is a contributor, a major contributor, to our efforts as a national organization,” said Matt Zarcufsky, the mother organization’s executive director. He praised the Atlanta chapter as “a group of very committed volunteers.” A history of giving
The Assistance League’s roots date to 1890s Los Angeles and charitable work by philanthropists Anne Banning and Ada Edwards Laughlin. In 1919, they formalized their organization as the Assistance League of Southern California. The
By John Ruch Photos by George Hunter
Top, Ellen Frank Above, Sue Levy, Susan Levinson and Ellen Frank
national version was organized in 1935.
Today, there are chapters in 26 states. The latest stats available, for roughly the year before the COVID-19 pandemic affected operations, showed the chapters collectively served about 1.37 million people and had about 20,000 volunteers.
The Atlanta chapter was formed in October 1982 by a group of 34 women who started with the Operation School Bell program. As a fundraiser, they sold “senior citizens’ crafts,” renting a small building in Chamblee they called the “Mouse House.”
The organization grew over time, and in the late 1990s undertook a $1.3 million capital campaign to build a thrift shop and headquarters. That opened in 2000 at 3534 Broad Street in Chamblee, which remains home to the 13,000-squarefoot thrift shop – a major revenue source, according to Frank, as it pulls in about $700,000 a year.
The chapter outgrew that space as well, but had trouble finding property in Chamblee as real estate values rose. In 2016, the organization bought an office building at 6264 Crooked Creek Road in Peachtree Corners as its “Philanthropic Center.”
Programs and partnerships
Operation School Bell remains an anchor program, with students at the local Peachtree Elementary school among the recipients, as well as many DeKalb and Fulton county schools. But the chapter partners on many other programs as well, largely centered on providing some kind of needed goods like clothing and food.
The long list includes hygiene and household items for homeless people in Atlanta’s Gateway Center and Nicholas House; teddy bears for patients in Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta hospitals; work clothing and MARTA cards for women in addiction recovery at Sandy Springs-based Mary Hall Freedom House; special clothing for patients at Atlanta’s Shepherd Center rehabilitation hospital; used books for school kids and scholarships to some metro colleges.
A lot of those programs fulfill needs rooted in such social issues as poverty. The Atlanta chapter does not get involved in addressing such
issues directly – “We can’t do everything,” says Frank — and also rarely runs a program itself, instead working with other groups or social workers. “Actually, all of our programs are partnerships,” said Frank. “We are not dealing with the public on a one-toone basis except in the thrift shop.”
But it requires a lot of work from Assistance League members, who often hand-pack care packages and other items. Membership is especially popular among retirees, said Frank, herself a former insurance adjuster who joined in 2015.
Frank also lived in Peachtree Corners for 27 years before more recently moving to Dunwoody. “I lived there when it was still Norcross. So it was very exciting to see Peachtree Corners become a city in itself,” she said. “And of course, when that happens, a lot of changes happen for the best, especially the new shopping center and the new Town Center.”
Challenges from the pandemic
Like everyone else, the Assistance League has faced dramatic challenges from the COVID-19 pandemic — increased demand for services overall and difficulty in having in-person volunteering. Frank said COVID has brought, “as our national [directors] would call it, the new norm, and the new norm is to be adaptable.”
Zarcufsky said that at the national level, the organization is looking at ways to continue providing goods to people in need in different ways. But it’s also thinking of other ways to serve or operate even the signature school programs.
“So we’re looking at opportunities to not just be charitable and provide goods, but looking at ways we can participate and engage with students in other ways like tutoring,” he said.
The local chapter had a big pivot to make with the thrift shop, which was closed for a while, then reopened with pandemic precautions. An online version was launched on eBay as well and has been a success, Frank said. In fact, she said, the shop is keeping pace with pre-COVID sales despite the turmoil.
The organization also has some changes in programs like a literacy week coming in February to Peachtree Elementary. Instead of some traditional face-to-face programming, the Assistance League is providing students with a bag containing a book, a Beanie Baby doll and some food items. The bag will encourage students to try “reading with a friend” — meaning the Beanie Baby.
The latest wave of the pandemic also affected the chapter’s plan to invite neighbors to get to know the organization through tours of the Peachtree Corners headquarters. A January tour was canceled, but the group hopes to get that rolling later this year, and also has a grant committee always seeking donations.
For more information, see assistanceleague.org/atlanta. ■
