Almost $8,000 was raised at the 3rd Annual Women Leaders for Grassroots Holiday Food and Wine Tasting hosted by Whole Foods Market Columbia, which donated the space and the food. Decanter Fine Wines donated the wines for sampling.
Executive Director Ayesha Holmes provides an update on activities at Grassroots, Howard County’s 24-hour crisis intervention center and shelter for the homeless. She noted that Grassroots counselors had met face-to-face with 2,386 people last year, received 37,591 calls on the hotline and went out on 1,015 Mobile Crisis Team emergencies, such as traumatic death events, intense family conflict, psychiatric emergencies and risk of suicide.
The shelter programs supported 290 men, women and children who received services to help them achieve permanent housing. Another 977 people were served at the Day Resource Center, where the chronically homeless are provided meals and services.
The featured speaker was a woman who recounted a story of the eight months she spent at Grassroots with her family. She cited the counseling and employment readiness programs as helping her turn her life around. Today she is employed in Columbia at a job she secured while at Grassroots over a decade ago and is also working on a Master’s Degree.
Presenting sponsors for the Women Leaders for Grassroots event were Lisa Higgins Hussman, Jean F. Moon of Jean Moon & Associates and Barbara Van Winkle of Nancy Adams Personnel.
Pictured: Applauding during the program at the 3rd Annual Women Leaders for Grassroots Holiday Food and Wine Tasting were (from l.) Libby Boswell, Esen Paradiso, Andrea Ingram, Kathy Flanagan, Sandi Berman, Courtney Moon and Carolyn Kelemen.