Federal-Quality Programming Delivered Locally

Rising Hope For Change has been entrusted as a community sub-recipient and partner on the SAMHSA ReCAST Project — Resiliency in Communities After Stress and Trauma — in partnership with the Philadelphia Department of Behavioral Health and Intellectual disAbility Services (DBHIDS) and Temple University. The ReCAST initiative is a federal flagship for community-level resilience-building following civil unrest and community trauma, and our role as a trusted community delivery partner reflects the credibility we have earned with federal, state, and academic institutions.

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Youth Workshops and Creative Therapy Sessions

Through our ReCAST programming and complementary youth initiatives, RHFC has delivered structured workshops at our Freedom Worship Center site combining trauma-informed group activities, expressive arts therapy, peer dialogue, and life-skills development. Young people who walked into these sessions guarded and disconnected have walked out engaged, expressive, and connected to ongoing support.

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Community Clean-Up Mobilizations

Our Team-Up community clean-up events have brought dozens of youth, families, and adult volunteers into the streets of Southwest and West Philadelphia — on Beaumont Street, along the 58th Street corridor, and across our service area — to claim public space, build neighborhood pride, and demonstrate the principle of collective efficacy in visible, tangible form. These events serve a dual purpose: a cleaner, safer neighborhood today, and a generation of young people learning that they have power over the conditions of their own community.

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Mental Health Awareness and Anti-Stigma Outreach

Through walks, workshops, and direct outreach, RHFC has met thousands of residents where they are — on church steps, in libraries, at recreation centers, in front of their own homes — to break the silence around mental health, substance use, gun violence trauma, and elder isolation. Our culturally rooted approach has reached African, African American, Caribbean, and West African families that mainstream behavioral health systems have historically failed to engage.

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COVID-19 Community Response

During the height of the pandemic, RHFC pivoted rapidly to deliver community education, food distributions, vaccine confidence outreach, and connection to resources — protecting residents in some of the hardest-hit ZIP codes in Philadelphia.

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Economic Empowerment and Family Support

From Earned Income Tax Credit education to workforce-readiness workshops to direct food and material assistance, we have helped families access benefits and resources they were entitled to but disconnected from — putting real dollars and real stability back into family budgets.

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Anti-Violence Walks and Community Mobilizations

Our annual Gun Violence and Addiction Awareness Walks have brought together survivors, faith leaders, public officials, youth, and elders in public witness — building the visibility and solidarity that the research identifies as central to long-term reductions in community violence.

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Elders' Safety and Wellbeing Programming

With support from the Philadelphia District Attorney's Office, RHFC has built a dedicated track of programming for older residents facing isolation, scam targeting, and disconnection from family and community life.