Catholic Charities USA (CCUSA) presented CCUSA Social Innovation Awards to the Spirit of Hope program, run by Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of New Orleans, during the Partners in Excellence RegionalGathering event taking place this week in New Orleans, Louisiana. The award recognizes socially-innovative programs being run by Catholic Charities agencies in communities across the country, and includes $5,000 to be reinvested into the program.
Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of New Orleans Spirit of Hope program was launched in June of 2010after the Deep Water Horizon Oil Spill disaster, establishing a new precedent for disaster response. The program was designed within a holistic model and focused on strengthening community participation, promoting inter-agency collaboration, and integrating services with a client-centered approach. It also placeda strong emphasis on empowering local communities, and was designed to transfer ownership and authority to the clients by way of consumer councils.
Award nominations were judged jointly by members of the CatholicCharities network and the Gigot Center for Entrepreneurship at the University of Notre Dame’s Mendoza College of Business, based on a set of predetermined criteria.
Congratulations to the Spirit of Hope Team for their continued ministry and outreach.