Restore Hope Ministries

Restore Hope Ministries, a United Methodist Church affiliate, works to restore families in crisis to economic and spiritual vitality. Restore Hope Ministries offers a comprehensive package of services to reach its goals. Programs are designed to achieve our dual purpose of equipping families to help themselves restore their economic and spiritual vitality and to mobilize congregations to serve families in economic need. Our programs include: emergency aid; chapel ministry; case management services.

Restore families in financial crisis to economic and spiritual vitality.

Goal One: RHM’s client services programs will use best practices and have excellent outcomes.

Goal Two: RHM will have a robust and flexible fundraising strategy that focuses on identifying new funding sources and excellent stewardship of current sources.

Goal Three: RHM will be a leader in providing advocacy and policy guidance related to basic human needs of housing and food.

Restore Hope maintains an active membership with the Oklahoma Center for NonProfits, an organization that provides training and leadership development classes. Restore Hope staff and leaders are encouraged to enroll in trainings and classes of interest and relevance. Restore Hope budgets funds to cover the related costs.

Throughout our entire 2020-21 fiscal year, the pandemic continued. Thankfully, we were as prepared as we could have been to overcome external challenges and help families in need. We worked creatively with our staff, board, and community partners to adapt our programming so we could not only continue to serve our community safely, but also increase our capacity to respond to a substantial rise in numbers of families asking for help. We have maintained all of our programs--food, rent, school supplies, Thanksgiving, and chapel--but shifted each of them in different ways. The biggest challenge for us was with our rent program. Despite the CDC moratorium on evictions for nonpayment of rent, landlords continued to file evictions on local tenants and our courts continued to approve them. Neighbors across the country were struggling to find stable income to pay rent and needed help in greater numbers than ever before. When substantial federal funding necessary to respond was approved, Restore Hope worked with local agencies and government to expand our program and help a historic number of households maintain stability and avoid homelessness in the midst of a public health crisis. From July 2020 to March 2021, our team worked with the State of Oklahoma to distribute over $2 million dollars of CARES ACT funding, but were only able to help 900 households until funds ran out statewide. Restore Hope successfully launched an expanded program, known across the country as ERAP, on March 15th, 2021. On the first day, Restore Hope received 1746 applications – far more than we had expected (and more than we had previously received in an entire year!). However, we worked diligently to prioritize applicants who were at greatest risk of homelessness first and continue to adjust our program to reduce barriers and improve efficiency. Between March 2021 and October 2021, Restore Hope distributed over $18million in aid to prevent more than 3,800 households from becoming homeless.