Our team at Advocate One was proud to partner with Claudia McClain and her agency, McClain Insurance Services in Everett, WA. The agency has had a partnership with local non-profit Cocoon House, an organization committed to breaking the cycle of homelessness for teens and young adults, since 2012.
“This year when COVID hit,” Claudia says, “we asked Cocoon House to advise us of one of their biggest challenges.” The organization told them that the food budget for their residential program had been heavily impacted. Their teens normally received breakfast and lunch at school, which were now closed, or home-cooked meals from church or community groups, which could no longer offer food donations due to health concerns. Food had to come from a commercial kitchen or be prepared onsite, which was an additional expense for the organization, and counselors had to aid in preparing meals, limiting the time and energy they had available for their important one-on-one work with the teens.
“We’re now past our 20th week of supporting Cocoon House and our local restaurants…We hope to be able to continue this work through the end of 2020, if not beyond.”
– Claudia McClain, McClain Insurance Services
“At the same time,” Claudia says, “most of our most treasured local family-owned restaurants were struggling financially. We saw an opportunity to support both Cocoon House and our local restaurants. We launched our Food for Our Future initiative on June 3rd, promising to deliver Wednesday night dinner to the 20+ residents and staff of Cocoon House.” Claudia’s team didn’t know how long they could maintain the financial commitment, but a couple of their family-owned vendors, a water restoration company and an IT/telecom vendor, asked if they could join in and take responsibility for some weeks. Several insurance company partners donated as well, allowing them to splurge on surprise desserts to accompany some of the dinners.
“We’re now past our 20th week of supporting Cocoon House and our local restaurants,” Claudia says. “Our goal was to provide a variety of food options for the teens and to that end, we have thus far used 15 different restaurants with more in the queue. We hope to be able to continue this work through the end of 2020, if not beyond.”
