Where the love is louder and the light is brighter
Many years of experience in human services have taught us that housing is just the starting point. The human services sector must offer opportunities for the whole person: the body, mind, and spirit. This holistic approach is the core to how Harvest House serves our community.
We have created places of love and belonging that offer healing that transcends generations.
Over the last 30 years, Harvest House has experienced a steady growth in the number of clients served and housed by investing in housing infrastructure. However, we have yet to expand infrastructure that will allow us to develop administratively, until now.
The Life-Enrichment Campus
With the introduction of a new campus on the corner of 17th and Beneva in Sarasota, Harvest House is on the brink of a transformation. This building development will be the first infrastructure expansion that is exclusively focused on the wrap-around support services that are so crucial to client success.
The Life Enrichment Campus will be a highly visible pillar of strength for people who are looking for purpose, home, health, and community. It will be an open door for anyone needing help or access to resources such as supportive housing, affordable housing, food, life-skills classes, addiction recovery, and more.
Read more to learn how this campus will serve Harvest House clients, staff, and our Sarasota community.
- Life-Enrichment Classes
- Administrative Spaces
- Community Space
- Professional Development
- Childcare
- Harvest Food Pantry
Harvest House provides life enrichment activities to more than 150 clients weekly. 100 of these clients attend classes 5 nights a week. We currently do this with no existing classroom infrastructure.
This construction will add four adult classrooms, two elementary classrooms, and a large multipurpose space with a total capacity of 300+ people.
Classes cover a variety of topics such as addiction education, literacy, career placement, sexual health and wellness, budgeting and financial management, anger management, yoga and meditation, cooking & nutrition, horticultural therapy, homeownership, parenting development, art therapy, and group therapy.
The administrative offices and multi-purpose space will facilitate our fundraising efforts through inviting, well-lit, technology-enriched offices and meeting spaces that allow us to regularly and easily demonstrate the impact of our work to our donors and investors.
This construction will include seven administrative offices and two private spaces for community partners and therapy.
Our administrative offices currently take up space on our Sarasota residential recovery campus. Moving our administrative offices to the new site will create space for additional case management and on-campus services.
This project will also allow Harvest House to facilitate more community walk-ins and agency partner meetings and offer exposure on a prominent corner to assist in our community awareness efforts.
We will be able to offer a broad spectrum of community enrichment programming including but not limited to life-enrichment classes and workshops, professional development seminars, fundraising events, client and team celebrations, and employee and volunteer training/teambuilding.
This campus will allow us to expand services to the greater community through increased partnerships with partner agencies, where we hope to further prevent homelessness experienced by ALICE families. For a longer-term impact, we are confident we will see a decrease in our clients’ recidivism rates for homelessness, incarceration, and addiction.
We will also be able to enlist volunteers who are ready to participate in our mission. We will offer a series of volunteer-led classes and workshops designed exclusively for clients and other at-risk members of our community.
Professional development workshops for local social workers will be offered by our in-house team of experts and community partners. Topics will include the disease model of addiction, trauma-informed care models, alternative therapeutic modalities for trauma, brain science education, and more. We intend to craft unique offerings that expand our community’s key decision makers’ and stakeholders’ understanding of the issues that create barriers for people experiencing the effects of poverty and trauma.
The childcare space will allow parents to attend free life-enrichment classes while their children will receive free on-site childcare that has educational components baked in.
Our team of highly-trained educators ensures that the children in our residential programs are receiving the wrap-around support they need as well. While parents are in classes, kids ages 12 and under are working on arts and crafts, exploring nature, playing games, and having fun with other enrichment activities that promote bonding and connecting.
The weekly food pantry distribution will continue to be hosted on this property. Food Pantry clients will also have access to the resources offered here.
Every week, the Harvest Food Pantry distributes fresh fruit, vegetables, meat, and dry goods to 200 families in the community. In 2020, over 560,900 lbs of food were distributed to 11,388 Sarasota families.
We have many partners from whom we purchase or receive donated food at a discounted rate including Trader Joe’s, All Faith’s Food Bank, Fresh Market, and Publix. This is all possible thanks to our partners and dedicated volunteers. For distribution times, and more information, click here.
