Ryan Kelly presided over the meeting. Bill McLeod provided the opening prayer. Joe Bost led us in the Pledge of Allegiance. Ryan led the club in the Four Way Test. The meeting was held at the Mugshots Bar and Grill in Hattiesburg.
Stew Deen then conducted the 50/50 raffle. Bill McLeod was the winner. He donated his winning back to the raffle.
Joe Bost then introduced today’s guest speaker, Juli Martinez. Juli is the Executive Director of the Hope Community Collective. The Collective is a non-profit organization serving the Pine Belt. She and her husband David founded the organization in 2019 to provide wrap-around services to families in need. She and David also founded the Via Hattiesburg church community where Juli is the Administrative Pastor. The Collective is a United Way of Southeast Mississippi agency. Although the agency does receive some funding from the United Way, most of their funding comes from people who care.
The Collective provides a food pantry and offers a behavioral health clinic. Juli focused on two additional services offered by the organization. Project Hope has a mission to meet and invest in the needs of those who are seeking a life-change. The heartbeat of Project Hope is to fortify families across the region by providing adult education classes, including anger & stress management, drug and alcohol recovery, addiction rehabilitation, parenting education and G.E.D. preparatory classes. Approximately 100 students take advantage of Project Hope’s services.
The Collective also offers a Hispanic Family Resource Services program. The mission of that service is to empower, education and enrich the Spanish-speaking populations across the Pine Belt. They offer mental health and wellness programs, sponsor family events, assist Spanish families with local vital non-profit and emergency resources. They provide translation for agencies & municipalities to disseminate information or serve clients in Spanish. The Collective offers counseling services provided by one of the four Spanish speaking licensed professional counselors in the state.
You can learn more about the Collective by visiting their website hopecommunitycollective.com or by calling 601-724-3628. You can use that same number if you know of a family in the area in needed of services provided by the Collective.
There being no further business to come before the club, Ryan thanked Juli for her remarks and then adjourned the meeting with our motto: “Service Above Self.”