At the Catholic Charities Housing Office’s Hope for the Homeless Annual event held on November 5, 2007 at the Franklin Terrace ballroom in Troy the Holodak & Smith families and Lammon Architects were honored.

The Holodak and Smith families received the ECHO Award for Encouraging Community and Hope for Others. These families give countless hours of service and dedication to the Housing Office. The Holodak family; Peggy and Frank with daughter Kate, son James and daughter in law Susan started the ball rolling several years ago with screen printing, sponsoring families at Christmas, donations, painting and web design. Then Susan involved her best friend Elena Smith with her husband Joseph. Elena and Susan became the dream team of volunteers. They recognized where families had needs and focused on trying to bridge those.

Over the past three years collectively the Smiths and Holodak’s have:

• Sponsored families in the Catholic Charities family apartments
• Painted a recreation room at one of the Single Room Occupancy buildings
• ALL-U (screen printing) donated 100 tee-shirts to a CCHO fundraiser
• MikeMadeThis (screen printing) donates 10% of its profits for children’s activities in the family apartments
• Designed the CCHO web site
• Picked up and delivered furniture
• Helped with landscaping
• Created and now maintain a kids clothing room providing gently used quality clothing at no cost to the families. Availed of the generosity of California Closets who designed and installed storage solutions that made the free store a reality.
• Made over an apartment for a mom and her six kids, providing new and good quality used furniture, new linens, bedding, kitchen items, toys et al designing a home to the family’s preferences.
• Raising funds for the next family’s makeover

None of this would have been possible without the assistance of their children Nick, Dillon, Kendall, Megan, Terrence and Christian Smith, and Michael, Daniel, Emily and Grace Holodak. Philomena and John Smith, Joe’s parents, made generous donations of money, time and sweat. The list could go on, but we think this should give you an idea of how these families give of themselves and recognize the inherent dignity given by God to each of his children. The Holodaks and Smiths are tangible evidence of God in our midst.

Raymond and Scott Lammon of Lammon Architects were awarded the Partners in Hope Award. The entire firm is a true partner of the Catholic Charities Housing Office and the entire Diocesan Housing and Property Management organization. Ray and Scott are only a phone call away for technical consultation, large scale project design or interpretation of complicated codes and regulations that must be followed by our programs each and every day.

Thanks to Ray and Scott’s work with us, CCHO is currently working on a $4 million dollar renovation of St. Peter’s Residence SRO in Troy. All $4 million is coming from a grant from the State’s Homeless Housing and Assistance Program. Without Ray and Scott, we wouldn’t have gotten that grant – and gotten that grant our first time ever applying for an HHAP grant. And thanks to the way Ray and Scott worked with us during the application preparation process… we are embarking on a major project to improve the lives of the formerly homeless and very low income people who live with us at St. Peter’s Residence.

Ray and Scott also have jumped into reviewing another property in Albany to determine if we can renovate that for new housing for formerly homeless people. And they do all this “up front” work with professionalism, with a smile, and with the knowledge that their fee is contingent on our getting the grant funding. These are great gifts to CCHO.