Embrace

March 2, 2015

Mission Statement: Embrace is a nonprofit organization rooted in mobilizing college students to serve less fortunate members of civilian and military veteran communities.

Founded in 2000 by CEO Sean Sheppard, Embrace programs are designed to connect college student leaders to San Diego’s multi-cultural community in the areas of social and physical wellness through service learning and volunteerism. The organization is built on the philosophy that serving less fortunate members of society brings people together – irrespective of their race, religion or cultural upbringing.

Advancing Health and Wellness: Our organization primarily utilizes college student volunteers to serve less fortunate members of civilian and veteran communities in the areas of social and physical wellness. By bringing together young adults from different races, cultures, ethnicities and religious beliefs to serve the community on a regular basis, Embrace utilizes community service as a means to promote social wellness.

Embrace the Streets Homeless Outreach allows college student volunteers and volunteer professionals to provide thousands of homeless veterans and civilians with food, clothing, blankets, social services and public health services throughout the year in a highly visible, farmer’s market style format.

Through this program, we are able to build a diverse group of volunteers that will serve a low-to-no cost outreach mechanism that allows the homeless population to access health insurance through the Affordable Care Act/Covered California.

Embrace The Streets provides the ongoing opportunity for public health majors and professionals, as well as graduate social work majors, to deliver information and services to homeless civilians and homeless veterans in the streets of San Diego, an extremely unique service learning/volunteerism experience to say the least.

Since July 2011, eight homes have been restored, with a total of over $400,000 worth of labor and materials invested. Half a dozen homes are in the queue.

Beneficiaries of this program are Embrace-identified, veteran homeowners with a disability rating of 80 percent or higher.

Multi-Ethnic, multi-cultural college student volunteers, many of which are military veterans themselves, are mobilized to perform the restoration work on the homes (except for electrical-related work). San Diego Gas & Electric’s Energy Savings Assistance Program has formally partnered with the H3 Program to ensure the homes are energy efficient.

2011 – 2014 Embrace Statistics

Total Value Back To Community: $645,690.90
Total Hours: 17,577.25
Total People Served: 50,020
Total Volunteers: 5,507

Benefits: Greater sense of independence for the disabled veteran, increased home value, community converging to serve veterans

Rehabilitation activities include but are not limited to: Electrical (contractors only) – Plumbing – Landscaping – Installation of ADA Ramps and Railings – Painting – Concrete – Installation of central air – Demolition

Description: Embrace mobilizes college students to serve homeless civilians and homeless veterans as well as mobilize college students to restore the homes of disabled veteran homeowners.

One of our objectives is to create social wellness through community service. We accomplish this by reaching out to a diverse pool of volunteers, and we have discovered that friendships and long-lasting relationships develop among the volunteers as they serve civilian and veteran communities in need.