“Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins. Offer hospitality to one another without grumbling.” – 1 Peter 4:8-9 (NIV)

As one of the many “first contacts” people have with Cornerstone, I strive to show the love of Christ to those we serve, whether over the phone or in person during an intake appointment.

I have worked at Cornerstone since November 2010, and I have seen the love of God through the employees who work here. They strive to love each person they come into contact with deeply as they fulfill their individual role. Each employee is essential to our mission of “Uniting together in Christian love to meet the needs of people,” as we offer hospitality, particularly to those in a moment of need. What a blessing that our employees and volunteers understand our mission and strive to help us achieve it.

My main role at Cornerstone is serving as the case manager for our short-term rental assistance clients. In my job, I am able to come alongside a family for three months to help with their rent and utilities, when they would otherwise be on the street. There are many families in need in Tarrant County that I come in contact with in person and on the phone. There are so many needs that we are not able to help everyone, but we do our best to refer them to other organizations that may be able to help. Please lift up a prayer for those families as you think of the hurting in our community.

My encouragement to you today is to show the love of Christ where you are. My hope and prayer is that your service to God occurs both inside and outside of the walls of Cornerstone. We are so grateful for our numerous volunteers, who do such a great job. Together, we can be a part of God’s kingdom of love, compassion and hospitality.

Paul Hood-Patterson
HPRP Case Manager

“Give Thanks, Give Back” is the theme of the Fall workshop for Cornerstone’s Comprehensive Care Program families. It is a time to reflect and be thankful for many blessings and to make a plan to give back. This year, Tangulon Gardner, from the Sickle Cell Disease Association, presented information about Sickle Disease. She provided handouts and prizes for participants giving them a wealth of knowledge about a disease not many are familiar with. While the adults enjoyed their presentation, the children (of all ages) enjoyed activities that generated discussion about being thankful and helping others. They also created crafts with Thanksgiving themes. For example, the children used apples, toothpicks, gumdrops, and marshmallows to create their turkey snacks. Everyone, adults and children alike, created books of thankfulness and made plans to give to someone else throughout the holidays. They were able to write down the things they were thankful for and create a booklet to remind themselves of these things when things seem to go wrong. As a direct act of giving back, the adults sorted socks and underwear for the Cornerstone Thrift Store. Finally, everyone contributed to our Thankfulness Tree which can be found hanging on the wall in the case management hall at Cornerstone Assistance Network. Each person placed a hand print on the tree and wrote what they are most thankful for. This tradition began a few years ago and will continue as we fill up our tree with thanksgiving.

The purpose of the workshop for our 3CP families is to engage them in learning things they would not otherwise be exposed to in a manner that they can receive. In a way, the workshops serve as teachable moments, therapeutic engagement, and social exercises. We look for new ways to engage our families each year in order to help them continue on their way to becoming self-sufficient.

Click here to see pictures of the Give Thanks, Give Back workshop.

Director of Housing/Case Management


Contact Philip.

Cornerstone Christmas Needs

The holidays are just around the corner and it's time to start thinking about how your group can be involved in the holiday ministries of Cornerstone!

Adopt-A-Child for Christmas
Many of the children in our programs will go without Christmas presents this year without the help of donors and sponsors. Since the parents of our sponsor children are not financially able to provide them with much of a Christmas, they are overwhelmingly grateful when they come into Cornerstone to pick up their children’s gifts.

If you and/or your organization, small group, co-workers, neighbors, etc. would like to participate in this year’s annual Adopt-a-Child-for-Christmas, we are offering several options to choose from:

• Option #1: Sponsor a child by donating $100
• Option #2: Buy gifts for a child from their wish list. Come by our office to pick up a child’s wish list or contact us to have one sent to you.
  

3CP Crock-Pot Drive
3CP’s (Cornerstone’s Comprehensive Care Program) goal is to provide families opportunities and encouragement to become self-sufficient through rental assistance, intensive case management and teaching life skills. One of the skills 3CP tries to promote is cooking healthy family meals and eating together at home. Also, most of our single moms and dads do not get any gifts at Christmas, so we’d love to bless them with a practical gift that would reinforce some of the skills we are trying to encourage.

How to help: Any size crock-pot (we have families that range in size from 2 members to 9 members) dropped off at our Cornerstone offices through December 14th.

New Life Center Christmas
Cornerstone’s New Life Center helps formerly homeless men transition to a new life of self-sufficiency. During their stay, residents are provided the supportive services of case management, mentoring as well as spiritual, physical, emotional, and financial guidance. Most of these men also lack family support and are blessed when others choose to make sure they have a happy Christmas.

• Option #1: Donate funds for gifts. $50 covers most of the cost for a resident’s gifts.
• Option #2: Go shopping for a resident with their Wish List. Wrap the gift and deliver it to the New Life Center or Cornerstone’s office.

For more information about any of these options, please contact Lindsay at 817-632-6000 ext. 116 or lwright@canetwork.org. More information is also available at our website at www.canetwork.org. Make a donation online and write “Christmas” in the notes box.

We look forward to partnering with you to make Christmas merry for our clients and their children.

Cornerstone Assistance Network
3500 Noble Ave.
Fort Worth, TX 76111
Phone: 817-632-6000
www.canetwork.org

3CP holds a fun client Christmas party every year for the entire family to enjoy. This year's activities included bingo, reading of the Christmas story, BBQ dinner and a visit by Santa!


Kay, our Director of Administration, reads the Christmas story


Fantastic volunteers from Rentenbach Constructors brought dinner


Some of our cute kiddos taking their picture with Santa


Can't say we don't have the cutest kids!

Over the weekend our housing clients attended a quarterly life skills and training workshop.

Featured classes included how to cook cheap and family friendly recipes, budgeting, how organize their homes to save money and even how to make soap. These workshops are especially important during the holiday season, when it is easy to overspend.

Perhaps the most creative tidbit our clients received was a recipe for homemade soap. Cheaper than buying Tide at the grocery store, the recipe is simple and just as effective. If you'd like the recipe, contact VISTA Leader Cassandra Robin at crobin@canetwork.org

Like most events Cornerstone does, it would not have been a success without the gracious help of volunteers, who donated their time to watch over our client's children.

We at Cornerstone hope that our clients take what they learn in these workshops and use it to improve their finances, their homes and their families. It's our goal that each of our clients leave Cornerstone standing on their own two feet, completely self-sufficient. These workshops are just another step in the process.

The Cornerstone Housing Development Corporation is a non-profit organization that includes house building, house renovations, and community revitalization. Its goal is to restore and revitalize communities by providing decent and affordable housing to low and moderate income families. Additionally, there will be job opportunities for those with barriers to employment who wish to gain valuable work experience in construction trades. Program participants are typically transitioning from rental properties, transitional housing, and even homelessness into home ownership. Participants attend a certified first-time home buyer's class as Cornerstone assists the churches, businesses, and other community organizations in the area to help assimilate new residents into the neighborhood.

Cornerstone Housing Programs include the New Life Center, Trinity Place, and Cornerstone Comprehensive Care Program (3CP).

New Life Center
1628 Sixth Avenue
Fort Worth, Texas

The New Life Center offers 18 homeless men an opportunity to transition from homelessness to a new life. During their stay, all residents are provided the supportive services of case management and mentoring as well as spiritual, physical, emotional, and financial guidance. Residents must desire to make lasting changes in their lives, stay drug and alcohol free, and pursue their training/education while they live at the New Life Center.

There is no question that the New Life Center is making a difference in the lives of the men it serves. Approximately ninety percent of NLC residents have a history of substance abuse and about half a criminal background. Despite these seemingly overwhelming statistics, 73% of our current residents have been sober for over a year- and several residents more than ten years! Most exciting in our eyes, we have several residents receive Christ every year! God is good and we are blessed to be a part of the work He is doing at the New Life Center.

Trinity Place
824 Samuels Avenue
Fort Worth, Texas

Cornerstone's Trinity Place program offers housing and after-care services to men transitioning from the New Life Center into their own home or apartment. All housing clients receive intensive case management to increase the rate of success.

The Cornerstone Comprehensive Care Program (3CP) has been serving the homeless of Tarrant County since 1997. 3CP provides opportunities for homeless families to become successfully self-sufficient by providing intensive case management services and housing. During a family's time in our transitional housing program, they not only work on increasing their earning potential through additional education and better employment, but are also encouraged to become more emotionally healthy and pursue a new or deeper relationship with Christ.

For questions about the Housing Development Corporation, the New Life Center, or Trinity Place, please contact Philip Posey, Director of Housing/Housing Development Corporation.

For questions about Cornerstone's 3CP Housing, please contact Taryn Freeze, Director of Supportive Services.

Over the past four years, the New Life Center (NLC) has gone through many wonderful changes. With 70% of the residents attending college and nearly everyone with a steady income, we are celebrating our successes. Still, we continue to look for new opportunities for our guys and ways to improve our services. We have been seeking a drug rehabilitation facility that is biblically based and also new ways to recruit godly men to mentor our residents. Over the past three months God has been at work connecting us to different ministries who can supply these very needs.

At one point, one of our NLC residents needed a new drug treatment facility. I contacted Larry Randall, the counselor on staff at Birchman Baptist Church, and he referred me to Hugh Huber with Kingdom Authority Ministries.

Larry and Hugh “coincidentally” met on a plane ride on the way back to Fort Worth from a biblical counseling conference in Indiana several months ago. I was just amazed how the Lord then made the connection for what our resident needed at just the right time. We do serve an on-time God! Since that time, two of our residents have begun a restoration and change process with the help of Kingdom Authority Ministries.

Hugh and his wife founded Kingdom Authority Ministries on their ranch in Waxahachie several years ago. Their desire is to make an investment in the lives of broken men through intensive discipleship. For the residents of the New Life Center who have relapsed, it gives them an opportunity to receive treatment in a facility where the primary emphasis is the teaching of God’s Word. When Hugh and I last visited over the phone, we talked about how we were so thankful that we could partner together in the gospel. As Paul writes to the Philippians: “I thank my God in every remembrance of you, always in every prayer of mine for you all making my prayer with joy, because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now.” (Phil 1:3-5)

NLC has also had a unique opportunity to partner with a local ministry, Remedy for This Heart, whose strategy is to befriend a formerly homeless man and begin to connect him with lasting solutions. This organization, founded by Trevor DeVage, has been touring the country raising awareness about the needs of the poor. During that time, they befriended Kyle Frey, who at that time was homeless, and began connecting him with lasting solutions. They first brought Kyle tothe New Life Center in April for an intake interview. Today, Kyle is ready for college beginning this fall and will be entering the New Life Center as one of our residents. Trevor and his team are but one example of what mentoring relationships look like at the New Life Center. The success of NLC’s mentoring program will be due in large measure to our mentors: godly men who sense a call from God to invest in other men. If you sense the call to be a mentor, or know someone who might, please send me an e-mail at mboerger@canetwork.org.