“we want to be crazy and do it all”
The Unforgotten Haven is a nonprofit that specializes in helping the homeless, the sick, the abused, the struggling, veterans and animals. You could say it is a nonprofit generalist. The group has 26 ongoing projects that range from putting together snack packs for chemo patients to collecting anything for pets that are being raised by families who are in hard times.
Michele Gambone, one of the founders of the Unforgotten Haven, said it started about 32 months ago in her living room. While driving around, she came across a homeless family living in a Wal-Mart parking lot in their car. There was a family of four children, a husband and a wife who was eight months pregnant. It was cold at the time so her family put them up in a motel for a week. Gambone started collecting items for the family in her living room.
Gambone and her partner Jeanne Rodrigues have worked the past couple years to help anyone they can.
“We help low-income families. We’re teamed up with a safe house and a domestic violence shelter … We help victims of fires, we went to Louisiana after the flood … we try to do fundraising for families with cancer … we feed the homeless on Sundays,” Gambone said.
Every month, the Unforgotten Haven provides 8,000 bag lunches for those in need and sorts through 100–150 bags of donations every day.
“We wanted to be the hub and then supply through partnerships,” she said.
Gambone said the organization is like a middleman. They collect donations and then give them to whomever needs them, be it the person in need or another nonprofit that helps people in need.
The organization started collecting items in a barn in Deptford on Delsea Drive. After 11 weeks, the barn had filled up, which is when they found the building in Blackwood. Its rent is sponsored by the Peter J. Haller Foundation. Gambone hopes to be able to fund the rent through monetary donations from the public soon.
The Unforgotten Haven is run with volunteers alone. There are 13 managers who run the haven and none of them get paid.
“Volunteers can come whenever we’re open. There is no no age limit as long as parents are with [the children],” Gambone said. “A lot of nonprofits say you’re too broad and that we should focus on one thing … but that’s not what we want to do, we want to be crazy and cover it all.”
For more information about the Unforgotten Haven, visit its website, unforgottenhaven.org.
