Ending Homelessness One Penny At A Time

The state of home­less­ness in Amer­i­ca is a trag­ic cri­sis that has seen lit­tle to no improve­ment in recent years. Big cities like New York, Los Ange­les, and San Fran­cis­co have seen large increas­es in home­less­ness due to the com­bi­na­tion of pop­u­la­tion increase, ris­ing hous­ing costs, and the incred­i­bly slow increase in fed­er­al min­i­mum wage hourly ben­e­fits. Accord­ing to The Nation­al Low Income Hous­ing Coali­tion, there are now only 12 coun­ties in the Unit­ed States where an indi­vid­ual earn­ing the state min­i­mum wage of $7.25 can afford a one-bed­room rental home alone. Hun­dreds of thou­sands of Amer­i­cans are forced to live in tem­po­rary hous­ing, home­less shel­ters, or on the streets. Although the state of home­less­ness looks bleak, orga­ni­za­tions such as Save A Pen­ny are get­ting cre­ative to com­bat home­less­ness and improve the lives of indi­vid­u­als all over the world whom have been plagued with home­less­ness.  Save A Pen­ny is cre­ative­ly com­bat­ing home­less­ness through their inno­v­a­tive neck­laces that per­son­al­ize the expe­ri­ences of indi­vid­u­als work­ing to change their lives for the bet­ter.

(Pho­tos Cred­it: Save A Pen­ny’s Web­site)

Save A Pen­ny cre­ates beau­ti­ful­ly craft­ed neck­laces made by peo­ple around the world, and uses the prof­its to help sup­port job cre­ation and erad­i­cate home­less­ness. Save a Pen­ny pro­vides full time employ­ment for indi­vid­u­als bat­tling home­less­ness. Not only are these neck­laces beau­ti­ful­ly made, they are incred­i­bly per­son­al as each pen­ny con­tains the sto­ry of the “Pen­ny Smith” who made that par­tic­u­lar neck­lace and what they over­came. Save A Pen­ny believes in the val­ue of sto­ries and the pow­er of one’s indi­vid­ual sto­ry of tri­umph. Save A Pen­ny includes the sto­ries of each Pen­ny Smith in each neck­lace to inspire oth­ers going through sim­i­lar dif­fi­cul­ties, and to show them that much like the Pen­ny Smith who craft­ed their neck­lace, they too have val­ue in their sto­ry. Save A Pen­ny not only works to end home­less­ness, it aids in nur­tur­ing the dreams and suc­cess of their very own Pen­ny Smiths. All indi­vid­u­als employed at Save A Pen­ny are part­nered with “Pen­ny Part­ners” which are men­tors who work to empow­er their mentees, and help them real­ize their dreams and aspi­ra­tions. Pen­ny Part­ners serve as life­time men­tors who help guide their mentees as they find their pur­pose and achieve their dreams. Save A Pen­ny even holds work­shops to edu­cate employ­ees on being pro­fes­sion­als and to inspire them through­out their jour­ney. Save A Pen­ny not only works to end home­less­ness, but tru­ly val­ues and invests chang­ing lives.

(The Founder of Save A Pen­ny, Gar­rett Under­wood with Pop­Fuzion TV’s Cor­re­spon­dent Shamar­ri Hart­zog)

While home­less­ness is a cri­sis sit­u­a­tion that will take an incred­i­ble amount of effort to com­plete­ly erad­i­cate, orga­ni­za­tions like Save A Pen­ny give us hope that one day we can see an end to this cri­sis. Save A Pen­ny is not only pro­vid­ing home­less indi­vid­u­als with an oppor­tu­ni­ty, but they are work­ing to be a sup­port sys­tem for indi­vid­u­als often ignored and over­looked. The work this orga­ni­za­tion does to see long last­ing change in the lives of many demon­strates an incred­i­ble lev­el of com­pas­sion, and the pow­er of see­ing val­ue in every­one. They are remind­ing us to see the val­ue in every­one and appre­ci­ate the sto­ries of those we have often forgotten…one pen­ny at a time. To learn more about Save A Pen­ny, go to http://saveapennychangealife.org/ or fol­low them on Insta­gram @saveapennyorg.

Writ­ten By: Shae Rowe