What You’ll Learn
- Salal volunteers helped renovate New Connections, a transitional housing facility in Tacoma, alongside Rebuilding Together.
- Find out about Salal’s ongoing partnership with Rebuilding Together, including the She Builds program, focused on addressing housing insecurity and empowering women.
Back in May, members of the Salal team joined the Rebuilding Together South Sound crew for a Saturday of volunteer work in Tacoma’s Hilltop neighborhood. Salal staff pitched in to help with a renovation project at New Connections, a transitional housing facility that supports women who have been previously incarcerated.
Among the day’s accomplishments were removing a dilapidated access ramp and starting the construction of a new ramp, helping build a new fence in front of the house, and assisting with some outdoor maintenance tasks. In the weeks following our volunteer day, Rebuilding Together staff completed the new access ramp, installed new kitchen storage, and repaired flooring. Financial support from Salal helped make these upgrades possible. We’re pleased to have had the opportunity to help make these improvements to ensure the New Connections facility continues to provide shelter and support for the communities it serves.
Our Partnership with Rebuilding Together
Since 2019, Salal and the Salal Foundation have partnered with Rebuilding Together to help address housing insecurity in our communities. A big focus of our partnership is Rebuilding Together’s She Builds program. Women-led and women-focused, She Builds provides critical repairs for women-headed households and women-focused community spaces. Through the program, women are empowered to maintain safe and healthy homes, make a difference in their communities, and build supportive community networks. Participants gain a wealth of experiences and skills as they share and learn from one another. Last year, Salal’s support funded seven capacity-building support grants of $10,000 to launch or expand existing She Builds programs.
About Rebuilding Together South Sound and New Connections
Rebuilding Together South Sound collaborates with other community stakeholders with the aim of partnering with at least one nonprofit organization annually. New Connections, similar to Rebuilding Together South Sound, focuses on preventing homelessness among a vulnerable population. In addition to housing and basic necessities, New Connections offers residents counseling, job training, caseworkers, and other post-release support services. New Connections aims to create a “society where incarceration is rare, brief, and non-recurring.”
