SINGLE MOMM AT A GLANCE

• Established as a Michigan 501c3 nonprofit in October 2008
  

• Legal Name: Northern Michigan Single Mom Christian Services Federal Tax ID# 26-3544089
  

• Mission: "Upholding single mom families and introducing them to the hope and love of Jesus Christ."
  

Board Members: Julie Eickenroth, Lori King, Amy Richards, Jennifer Finnegan

Board of Advisors: Bill Marsh Jr., Dennis Prout, Eric W. Phelps Esq., Randy Burgess, Deanna Cannon

Executive Director: Jennifer Finnegan

Administrative Assistant: Heidi Hanna

Child Care Coordinator: Jenny Sheneman

Prayer Partner Coordinator: Kim Jung

ABOUT SINGLE MOMM

Our Mission:

"Upholding single mom families and introducing them to the hope love of Jesus Christ."

We Accomplish Our Mission By:

• Praying for single moms and their children
• Sharing our lives with single moms by building relationships with them
• Accepting and loving single moms where they are at
• Addressing where each single mom has come from, where she is and where she wants to be
• Affirming single mom families in the face of challenges
• Helping single moms develop life skills and healthy attitudes to strengthen their families
• Counteracting the downward slide into poverty many single moms and their children face
• Connecting single moms with physical resources
• Helping single moms reestablish themselves and their families into the local community
• Collaborating ideas, resources and efforts with local businesses, organizations and churches
• Encouraging single moms to establish a community within a local church body
• Introducing them to the greatest love story ever told!
  

Empowering the Single Mom Home

""A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows, is God in his holy dwelling place." Psalms 68:5

Brokenness                                                                                 

• We encounter brokenness
• We help stabilize the single mom home
• We begin walking life together with the single mom                                                   
  

• We help them begin to discover who they are
• We help them unearth why they are here
• We help them see where they are going

• We help them find acceptance in Christ
• We help them discover the love of their Heavenly Father
  
• We help them connect to a loving community

• We encourage and teach new life skills
• We walk with them as they reestablish themselves and their families

• We celebrate their successes
• We rejoice in their new life
  

Doing Life Together...we at Single MOMM believe in walking through life's challenges and joys together.

Saturday Events: Once a month single moms from around the Traverse City area gather to participate in events designed to strengthen the single mom and her home. We have held events such as a car care clinic, luncheons, art therapy day, self-defense clinic, day of organization, career building day, and a day of pampering.

Single Mom Family Fun: Every other month Single MOMM focuses on providing an event that encourages single moms to interact and form lasting memories with their kids while building relationships with other single mom families.

Mom's Night Out: Taking single moms out to dinner, the movies or out for coffee on a quarterly basis gives them a break, fellowship and encouragement that is needed.

AMMA Program: Our small group mentoring program is set to officially launch in September of 2010. These small groups will consist of three single moms and a facilitator. The groups will offer a more intimate time for the single mom as she gets to know her small group through monthly activities and fellowship. Many single moms lack a solid support system, the AMMA program is designed to bring support to the single mom and her home.

Dress for Success Closet: Single MOMM houses a closet full of slightly used and new professional name brand clothing, accessories, shoes, under garments, purses, and everything else needed to dress for the work place. The closet is open by appointment only and an appointment can be set-up by calling, 231-649-3799. 

The Don't Read Book Club: For every single mom that hears, "you should read this book" and the next thought that runs through the head is, "yeah, when I have the time". Our solution, don't read it! Come on the third Thursday evening of the month to Espresso Bay (on the corner of Front and Cass St. downtown Traverse City, MI), enjoy coffee and get "cliff" notes on one of those "really good" books you should read.

Prayer, Support and Resources: Single MOMM is a bridge between single moms and area resources. Prayer, support and resource referrals can be obtained by phone, email or in person.

Moving Forward:

Leah's Landing: Leah's Landing is a housing program that will house four single mom families while providing year long Christ centered programming. While living at Leah's Landing the single mom and her children will have access to professional counseling, life skill training, fellowship with other single moms, financial assistance, and a safe place to reside.

HISTORY

Founded in 2005, Single Mom Ministry formed in response to a massive need. The United States leads the world in fatherless families, with roughly 24 million children living in homes where the father does not reside (a). In 1998, the median income for single mother households was $18,000; for single father households the income was $30,000 (b). (The median income for married-couple families with children was $57,000.) In 1995, nearly six of 10 children living with mothers only were near the poverty line. About 45 percent of children raised by divorced mothers and 69 percent by never-married mothers lived in or near poverty, which was $13,003 for a family of three in 1998(c).Many of these single mom homes are at risk. The number of children being raised by single mothers has more than tripled between 1960 and 2000(d). With the number of single mom homes rising it is imperative that our communities are taking action to assist and support these single parent homes. The late Larry Burkett, of Crown Financial Ministries, called single moms "the most desperate population in America".

Concerned by this need Lynn Moody founder of Single MOMM launched an online ministry in 2005 to assist single moms with resource finding, establishment calls, establishing at home businesses, providing churches and other organizations with information on how to provide help to single moms and their families, while sharing the love of Christ.

In June 2008, Single Mom Ministry began to see the overwhelming need of single moms within their own backyard. Jennifer Finnegan was hired as the first executive director for the ministry and began surveying the needs of single moms within the Traverse City area. Today, Single MOMM which was permanently established as a 501c3 Michigan nonprofit in October of 2008 under the legal name, Northern Michigan Single Mom Christian Services serves the Traverse City area and outlining towns while reaching single moms across the nation and internationally through it's website.

CORE COMMITMENTS

Single MOMM's work is founded on the Christian call to care for the widow and orphans articulated in the Bible in James 1:27:

"Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress..."  

Today many single moms are modern day widows, raising children in poverty, without positive male influence, without adequate resources, in unstable environments, or without emotional and physical support.

Single Mom Ministry seeks to bring relief and restore to single moms the things that God intends for them: their daily provisions, peace, healing, rest, love and fellowship. By providing activity based programs, one on one discipleship, prayer, home visits, resource assistance, and support, Single MOMM seeks to encourage hope and restoration in the lives of those we serve.

Single Mom Ministry helps single moms regardless of their religion or ethnicity.

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a. Alisa Burns and Cath Scott, Mother-Headed Families and Why They Have Increased (Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum and Associates, 1994), p.xiii

b. ”Historical Income Tables-Families, “Bureau of the Census, www.census.gov, Last revised October 4, 1999.

c. Census Brief CENBR/97-1, Bureau of the Census, www.census.gov, September 1997.

d. U.S. Census Bureau, Current Population Reports, P20-537, Table CH-5. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Census Bureau, 2001.