Local charity Opportunity House needs our help

Our local Northern Solano County Association of Realtors has always supported Opportunity House in Vacaville. Thousands of people, including children, have been helped by this great program. It all started in 1988 when real estate broker Paul McGuire and his wife, Deb, along with a couple other philanthropists came up with an idea to help women and children trapped in abusive or dangerous living situations. Local contractors Hearn and Quigley and others volunteered to build the first home. If I remember correctly, the idea was to give families shelter to avoid homelessness when they escape from seriously dangerous substance abuse or physically abusive situations. The brilliant idea was while staying at the Opportunity House there would be a sober and drug-free environment for the women and occasionally even men to get back on their feet and find permanent housing. The folks that stay at opportunity house are required to chip in with chores around the house as there is no free lunch. Financial education is provided and jobs are found for the motivated unemployed and services are provided to assist in getting social services for the people who may be unemployable due to disability or other hardships. Recently, I heard that several former Opportunity House graduates are now homeowners. The brilliance of this program is that hundreds of charitable volunteers and Opportunity House employees have taught and helped hundreds and maybe thousands of women and men to survive devastating circumstances. They accomplish their success by teaching people to fish rather than just providing free fish because giving a fish feeds a person for a day and teaching a person to fish feeds them for a lifetime (this is not a Jim Porter quote but I believe in it). Opportunity House needs help. The Thrift Shop on Peabody Road in Vacaville needs a lot more customers as soon as possible and the Opportunity House needs donations to make up for a loss of some federal funding that was recently pulled because of the charity’s strict rules on drugs and alcohol. I think there is a GoFundMe deal happening and I know the thrift shop has some great deals so please support this great cause.