After thoughtful consideration by the Steering Committee regarding our capacity to effectively close out the organization and hold a major event, the decision was made to cancel the GHA iGNITE luncheon scheduled for March 4.
It was a difficult decision, but one that will allow us to focus on transitioning GHA projects such as the Housing Navigator Pilot and Eviction Initiative to new partners and will allow us to ensure the financial resources entrusted to GHA are used to best benefit its goal of ending homelessness in our community.
We feel confident that GHA’s past successes have put resolving homelessness in the hearts and minds of our community, our civic leaders, and the service providers who have worked tirelessly toward this end.
We deeply appreciate your support and hope you will continue giving your time, talents, and resources to other organizations serving those experiencing homelessness in Greenville to ensure the work GHA began continues.
Even though we are not gathering this year, we invite you to explore and celebrate our collaborative accomplishments by viewing our 2024 Impact Report.
Eviction Stories
For the third year, GHA partnered with students from the Bob Jones University Cinematic Arts Department to create video “Stories of Hope” to educate and inspire our community. The stories below were created in 2024 and focused on eviction education. Many thanks to Associate Professor Jason M. Waggoner, Cinematic Arts Department Head Sharyn Robertson, and all the faculty and students who helped bring these stories to life.
Pregnant featuring Dr. Kacey Eichelberger, Chair of Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, University of South Carolina School of Medicine Greenville, Prisma Health Upstate. Filmmaker: Claire Gotcher
Perseverance featuring Taylor Young, Director of Social Services, The Salvation Army of Greenville County. Filmmaker: Megan Winberg
A Landlord’s Perspective featuring Matt Foster, CEO NOAH Property Management and Mario Brown, CEO Affordable Upstate. Filmmaker: Hans Rathert
The big hope for these videos is that people will walk away with a broader scope of how eviction affects the community and the various ways people can be helped. There were so many aspects of this issue that I hadn’t considered, and I’m happy to say that I was surprised by how many professionals have dedicated their time to helping people in need in these areas. At the same time, I see how much need there is for this kind of work to continue to grow, not only in Greenville but in other counties and states all over the US.
Claire Gotcher, Student Filmmaker
So often as storytellers and filmmakers we want to make up characters of our own, but getting to spend time with people and hear about their life makes them the best kind of storyteller. Only they can tell their story how they felt it, how they lived it, how they breathed it. That’s not something you can just recreate. The emotions are real, the feelings are real, and their words are powerful. While shooting, I forgot about the camera next to me and the microphone by her mouth. Suddenly I forgot that I was making a doc at all, and all I wanted to do was listen to her story. And then I realized that my job was to make her story heard, and I felt the significance of her message and the pressure to present it with integrity and technical excellence.
Megan Winberg, Student Filmmaker
Support Services Perspective featuring Martin Watson, Community Relations Coordinator for Greenville County Human Relations Commission (GCHRC). Filmmaker: Robert Brown
Pictures below are from the 2023 iGNITE events.
