“My granddaughter wrote an essay about the wonderful way you Bless families at Thanksgiving and all year round. She encouraged me to donate. God Bless y’all.” With that message, James M. gave a very generous gift to GRACE. At the very same time, Kayleigh R. wrote in: “My cousin Jaela wrote an amazing essay about y’all and it inspired me to donate.” Curiosity struck. We reached out to Jaela’s mother, Angela R. “Jaela had heard of [GRACE] because several years ago her dad, James R., was a volunteer in your clinic. She fell in the love with the idea of giving baskets of ingredients as well as food because her favorite part of Thanksgiving is everyone together cooking. That won her over and she wrote an essay on why she had chosen GRACE as the organization to receive her grandfather’s donation. “She researched several charities and GRACE was one she had on

GRACE Christmas Cottage “officially” launched the holiday season last weekend with dozens of volunteers and staff moving tons of bicycles, toys, clothing—you name it—to the Cottage location at 1250 William D. Tate Avenue in Grapevine, next to the JOANN Fabric & Craft Store. Once again, the generous folks at Robert S. Beall Investments has donated the use of the massive space. Volunteer “elves” are busy now transforming the vacant storefront into a Winter Wonderland. This year, of course, COVID restrictions will limit the number of client families, volunteers, staff, and visitors can enter Christmas Cottage. The annual Christmas Cottage Open House, a chance to see the artwork, organization, and generosity that goes into Christmas Cottage, has not been scheduled. Those who have visited Christmas Cottage in past years can easily envision the stacks and rows of donated toys, bicycles, hooded sweatshirts, books, electronic games and toys, and thousands of other

“Like everyone else, our year started to spin wildly out of control around mid-March,” GRACE CEO Shonda Schaefer began, trying to put into words the experiences of the past 9 months. “Throughout those confusing first weeks, and the frightening weeks after that, there was one thought that kept us going: no matter how bad things were for us, for our staff, for our volunteers, for our donors, it was infinitely worse for those we served,” she said. Client Services statistics from the 2020 fiscal year, which ended August 31, practically speak for themselves. Total number of unduplicated individuals served during the fiscal year was 11,042. Historically, over the past 5 years, GRACE has served an average of 5,029 unduplicated individuals each year.  This equates to an average of 1,859 households. The number of households served in the 3rd and 4th quarters of last year (March through August) increased by close

Tarrant County Administrator G.K. Maenius announced Wednesday the creation of a rental assistance program to aid county residents whose income has been reduced due to COVID. The CARE 4 Tarrant Rental Assistance Program aims to help the nearly 40% of Tarrant County residents who rent their homes, and who have been unable to pay rent due to layoffs, a reduction in hours, the need to provide care for a child or elderly or disabled person, or because of a need to isolate to prevent severe illness. Maenius explained the CDC issued an order in September to temporarily halt residential evictions to prevent the further spread of COVID. On January 1, 2021, landlords will again be able to evict tenants due to repayment of rent. “The [CDC] eviction moratorium is not the same as rental forgiveness,” said Maenius. “Rent is still due.” To prevent what could be mass evictions after the

The American Heart Association (AHA) and American Medical Association (AMA) awarded Gold Level status to the GRACE Community Clinic for the fourth year in a row, and the AHA selected the Community Clinic to be part of their new nationwide cholesterol initiative. Dr. Takiyah R. Wilson, senior director of healthcare systems for the American Medical Association, sent the following: “The AHA and AMA congratulate you on achieving Gold Level Recognition with the Target: BP Initiative. We thank you for your continued support and commitment.” “Target: BP” is a joint AHA and AMA project launched in 2015 to improve blood pressure (hypertension) control and aims to reduce the number of Americans who have heart attacks and strokes by urging medical practices, health service organizations, and patients to prioritize blood pressure control. The “Target: BP” goal was to obtain 70% control of patients with a hypertension diagnosis.  More than 73% of the