Letter from the Executive Director
Tag: Executive Director
Letter from the Executive Director
Dear CCO Supporter,
Merry Christmas from all of us at Cornerstone Community Outreach! I am so grateful that you have partnered with us in the past. CCO’s shelter guests need your support more than ever. Safe shelter remains a critical need. At Cornerstone, families and single adults experiencing homelessness receive holistic care and wrap-around services as they journey toward permanent housing.
I would like to ask you to continue to be a financial partner with Cornerstone Community Outreach. Our objective is to disrupt the cycle of poverty by providing safe shelter while exploring long-term housing solutions for our clients. While at Cornerstone, our residents experience a higher quality of life through professional, compassionate care that helps them on the road to permanent housing.
I hope you’ll take a moment and read Sandra’s story. Her path to peace has been a long one. Sandra and her 11-year-old daughter arrived at Cornerstone in a courageous move to escape the cycle of abuse in her life. She described the time before arriving at Cornerstone as the “lowest point in my life.” Thankfully, while with us, she found the support, care, and renewal that she needed. Today, she’s housed and employed using her lived experience to help other families who are homeless. I’m grateful that Sandra dared to escape her harmful past and found a new start at Cornerstone!
Click here to read about Sandra’s Path to Peace.
CCO is one of Chicago’s largest homeless shelters committed to providing immediate safe shelter and pathways to permanent housing for families and individuals from all walks of life. We welcome over 325 households each year in collaboration with the City of Chicago and a team of nonprofit partners. CCO prioritizes inclusivity, accepting clients from difficult circumstances by supporting many household structures, including intact families, single adults, LGBTQ+ families, and more. Ultimately, our goal is to ensure everyone has access to safe housing, nutritious food, and, most importantly, dignity, no matter their plight.
I would like to invite you to be part of more success stories like Sandra’s by financially supporting our vital work with a 100% tax-deductible donation. Have a wonderful holiday season! Best wishes in the coming year from all of us at CCO!
Andrew Winter
Executive Director
Cornerstone Community Outreach (EIN 36-3670992) is a nonprofit 501(c)3 organization and contributions are tax deductible to the extent allowed by law.
ED Sandy Ramsey Announces Retirement
“Dear CCO Staff, Shelter Guests, Volunteers, and Supporters,
To say that I have enjoyed working at CCO would be such an understatement. It has been a thrill, an adventure, and a great ride. I wouldn’t trade this experience for anything. Working at CCO with wonderful families and single people has made me a better person and I am thankful for each and every story I have been privileged to be a part of.
The CCO staff has worked tirelessly alongside me and I am grateful to them for their faithfulness to our important work. I could not have done this for over 30 years without them.
My successor as Executive Director will be Andrew Winter, who has been working alongside me for many years as Chief Financial Officer and has already been leading the way for the last couple of years. He has exhibited great capability and compassion, and I know he is up to the task.
I will miss CCO, the staff, and all our residents more than I can express. It is bittersweet to be retiring, but I am also excited about this new chapter in my life. Thank you for your support after all these years.”
- Sandy Ramsey
CCO staff, shelter guests, volunteers, and supporters wish Sandy all the best as she embarks on the next phase of her life. She will be truly missed. Stay tuned for an upcoming tribute to Sandy and her many incredible years at CCO.
Letter From the Executive Director
Dear Friends:
Greetings from Cornerstone Community Outreach (CCO)! We find ourselves at the end of another adventurous year and we are so grateful you have been a part of it! We have had continued success in housing our shelter participants, thanks to some new housing initiatives offered by the Chicago Department of Family and Support Services and All Chicago. Two stories come to mind – first, a senior Vietnam vet who has been homeless for over 40 years now holds keys to his own apartment! Even at CCO, he remained homeless for several years, but thanks to our faithful and persistent staff, he stabilized enough to receive permanent housing. A woman lived on a park bench for months. She wouldn’t even come inside to our women’s program. CCO staff repeatedly engaged her in conversation, eventually earning her trust. From there, small steps followed by bigger movement and finally an apartment of her own! On top of that, staff worked to help her reunite with her daughters whom she had not seen in a few years, who had been looking for her!
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