Red Hill Lutheran held a Can Castle Food Drive today (February 13) to contribute to the ongoing need for food here at the Rescue Mission. This is a fun-filled event where kids learn the importance of teamwork and helping others by competing to build the best castle from donated canned goods. Click here to find out how you can do the same.

Thank you, Red Hill Lutheran!

Blowing your family’s money on alcohol and cocaine is bad enough at any time. But when the bad economy meant a cutback in hours at the store where he worked, Ronnie lacked both the money he needed to provide for his family and the motivation to find more work.

“Drugs made me lazy,” Ronnie says. “I was spending money in the wrong places. I lost our apartment and we were out on the street.”

For three months, Ronnie, his wife Judy, and their two young children drifted between shelters, treatment programs, and the streets. When they were accepted into the Village of Hope, it was a milestone in more ways than one.

“We were the first married family with kids to move in,” Ronnie says proudly. “Being here means the world to us,” Judy adds. “We’ve been married 25 years,” she continues. “To be in a place where the family can stay together, where we can work it out together, is a big bonus.”

“It’s a total blessing,” Ronnie agrees. “I was in treatment before, but then it was just about the drugs. At the Mission it’s about your whole life. And the whole family is here. Now my son says ‘My daddy’s not on drugs!’ This way is best for everybody.”

“We want to be an example for other families,” Ronnie concludes. “We are showing you can change your life. It can be done!”

Your generosity and one wrong number made all the difference for a mother and daughter running out of hope.

My life was chaos,” Adelia says simply. But thanks to a misdialed phone number and your support of the Orange County Rescue Mission, today she is on the road to a new life.

Adelia pulls no punches describing her old ways. “I did a lot of dope,” she says bluntly. But the real problems began in June, 2005, when her mother died after a long illness. “As she got worse, the hospice just released her,” Adelia explains. “‘She had a good life,’ they said, and wouldn’t do anything else. When she died, I got mad at God, the world and everyone in it. “Everything I did that was right, I stopped doing,” she continues. “I quit working, quit paying bills ... just quit.”

What happened next was no surprise: Adelia lost her job and apartment. Eventually, Adelia and her daughter, NormaLee were living in their car in a hospital parking lot. “You don’t get much sleep with a 2-year-old kicking you saying, ‘I want potty,’” Adelia sighs. “And you can’t feed a 2-year-old instant noodles and cold chicken all the time. “I was about a half-step ahead of CPS [Child Protective Services] then.”

On a day she describes as one of her worst of all, Adelia even dialed the phone incorrectly. But amazingly, her wrong number connected her to the Orange County Rescue Mission’s House of Hope women’s shelter. Before long, we made a place for Adelia and NormaLee. Today, mother and daughter are getting their lives back on track.

“I was cheating NormaLee out of her mom,” she says. “I just thank God she has come out of it without mental scars. She’s been through so much. “I look forward to every day now,” she continues. “I know life’s not about money or things. I had things. It’s about who you are. “I never accepted myself and always tried to be someone I wasn’t,” Adelia says. “Now I am happy with who I am.”

If you do your regular shoping at Albertson’s or Ralphs, you can help provide support to the homeless. Just register your Albertson’s Preferred Savings and Ralph's Rewards cards, select the Orange County Rescue Mission and percentage of every purchase you make thereafter will be donated to OCRM to assist us in bringing hope to the Least, the Last and the Lost.

Click the following links to sign up:

Albertson’s Community Partners (Enter ID # 49000125638)
Ralph's Community Contribution (Enter Non Profit Organization # 91204)

Thank you!

1. THOUSANDS OF GRADUATES of our men’s New Life Program who have been freed from their addictions
2. WOMEN who’ve graduated from our House of Hope program
3. CHILDREN whose futures have been changed as their parents break the cycle of poverty
4. WORKING POOR FAMILIES who don’t have to choose between rent and food anymore since you provided a food box
5. OLD MEN who’ve been rescued from sleeping on cold park benches
6. YOUR CHILDREN, GRANDCHILDREN and others who get to see Christian charity in action
7. 1.5 MILLION PEOPLE who have been directly or indirectly affected by the lives changed here over the past 45 years
8. ORANGE COUNTY TAXPAYERS, who have been saved the costs of welfare, prison, crime, unemployment and emergency rooms that stem from services to the homeless
9. OUR STAFF, who let God work through them and are often changed in the process
10. YOU, the donor. You have experienced the blessing of helping others

I have been blessed to be able to serve so many needy people over the years. But when I think back, there’s one face that always stands out. It belongs to a 6-year-old boy named Michael.

I didn’t meet Michael in a food line or find him sleeping on the streets. When I was growing up in Newport Beach, Michael lived down the street from me. In my early teens, I became like an older brother to him as he hung around with me and my friends.

Then, without warning, Michael’s world collapsed. His father’s buisness slowed to a stop, ultimately going bankrupt. Rather than face his failure, Michael’s father chose to commit suicide. Michael’s mother was a stay-at-home mom who had never held a traditional job. Weighed down by grief, uncertainty and fear, Michael’s mother reached out to me for help.

Me? What could I, a 14-year-old boy, do? I had no idea. But I knew I had to try. And trying changed my life. I made a bunch of phone calls. Talked to a lot of adults all over Orange County. Eventually, I was able to find people, organizations and agencies who could get Michael and his mother the help they needed.

Fast-forward 15 years to the early 1990s. I was standing on the roof of the House of Hope in Orange County when my big, clunky cell phone rang. It was Michael, calling out of the blue to thank me for helping him and his mother all those years before. How could I tell him what he had done in my life? When his mother asked a teen boy for help, she put me on the path to where I am today. When you reach out a hand to help someone else, their grasp makes both of you stronger. When you bless someone else, God blesses you in return. Thank you for your generosity to the Mission.

In His service,