Support from Day 1: Lubbock's Open Door gets $1M Bezos fund grant

Lubbock Open Door, a community-based organization providing safe housing for survivors of sex trafficking, recently announced that it has been selected to receive a $1 million grant from the Bezos Day 1 Families Fund.

It's the largest grant Open Door has received in its more than 20-year history of working to cultivate community, opportunity, and restoration for people experiencing poverty and homelessness, according to Chad Wheel, the non-profit organization's CEO.

Launched in 2018 by Amazon founder and executive chair Jeff Bezos, the Day 1 Families Fund issues annual leadership awards to organizations and civic groups doing compassionate, needle-moving work to provide shelter and hunger support to address the immediate needs of young families.

“We are honored and humbled to be among the 2021 Day 1 Families Fund award recipients," Wheeler said. “Support from the Day 1 Families Fund will have a profound impact on our ability to help families find safe housing and healing from the trauma of sex trafficking.”

This one-time grant will allow Open Door to increase housing and therapeutic services for survivors of sex trafficking and their children in Open Door Survivor Housing. Specifically, this grant will expand access to trauma-focused therapies like equine therapy, child-centered play therapy, and eye movement desensitization and reprocessing therapy, as well as provide new resources to assist survivors moving into permanent housing.

Read more: Open Door says they're closer than ever to ending chronic homelessness in Lubbock

Open Door was selected as a Day 1 Families Fund grant recipient by an independent advisory board comprised of homelessness experts with experience in policy, advocacy, racial equity, child welfare and housing and service delivery, as well as firsthand experience in homelessness.

Bezos founded Day 1 in 2018 with a $2 billion outlay, according to USA Today Network reporting.

In a tweet announcing the fund, Bezos wrote that it would focus on two areas: Funding “existing non-profits that help homeless families, and creating a network of new, non-profit, tier-one preschools in low-income communities.” The fund is named Day 1 in reference to the operational strategy for Amazon, in which it’s always “day one.”

Since its inception, the Day 1 Families Fund has distributed $398 million to 130 organizations in 38 states. Grantees, who are invited to apply for funding, are chosen by an independent advisory board made up of homelessness experts.

This year, the Day 1 Families Fund issued a total of $96.2 million in grants to 32 organizations across the country.

The 2021 Day 1 Families Fund grant recipients are: ACLAMO; Adopt-A-Family of the Palm Beaches; Alabama Rural Coalition for the Homeless, Inc.; All Chicago Making Homelessness History; AACI (Asian Americans for Community Involvement); Building Changes and Africatown International; Catholic Charities of the Diocese of Santa Rosa; Colorado Coalition for the Homeless; Covenant House Alaska; Destination: Home; Doorways; Family Life Center; Family Service League; Friends of the Family; Homeless Action Network of Detroit; Homeward; LifeMoves; Lubbock Open Door; Mesilla Valley Community of Hope; Mid-Maine Homeless Shelter & Services; Mississippi United to End Homelessness; Newcap, Inc.; Orange County Asian and Pacific Islander Community Alliance (OCAPICA); Portland Homeless Family Solutions; Project Community Connections, Inc.; Rural Alaska Community Action Program (RurAL CAP); Sacramento Steps Forward; SHELTER, Inc.; Texas Homeless Network; The Link; Tri-County Community Action Agency, Inc.; and Union Station Homeless Services.

This article originally appeared on Lubbock Avalanche-Journal: Support from Day 1: Lubbock's Open Door gets $1M Bezos fund grant