“Our heart is for people,” Michelle Kime said.
Kime and her colleague, Kristen Hershey, are the co-directors of Conestoga Valley Seeds, or CV Seeds for short. Conceived as a comprehensive social services “hub” like Factory Ministries in eastern Lancaster County or ECHOs in the Elizabethtown area, it provides health, education and housing services to individuals and families in the Conestoga Valley School District.
This fall, it is expanding its efforts to include outreach services to homeless individuals, under a contract with East Lampeter Township.
How it started
CV Seeds is the brainchild of Katie Reiff, a social worker in the school district. In 2019, she, Hershey and several others began exploring ways of providing additional community support to students and families in the district who needed it. (Besides East Lampeter, the district encompasses Upper Leacock and West Earl townships.)
The pandemic necessitated a pause, but in fall 2021, they relaunched their work, leading to the creation of CV Seeds and its incorporation as a 501c3 nonprofit in 2022.
Initially, Kime and Hershey led CV Seeds’ board as president and vice president. In January, they dropped out of those roles to serve as the organization’s co-directors and first paid staff. Their work is augmented by a cadre of about 65 to 70 volunteers. Reiff serves as board secretary.
CV Seeds’ first and perhaps best-known program is the English as a Second Language classes it offers for adults and children. (There are 36 languages spoken at home in the Conestoga Valley School District, Kime noted.)
The classes are taught in partnership with the Literacy Council of Lancaster-Lebanon. They run for six weeks in the spring and fall and include childcare and free meals. This fall’s series is the fifth: 45 adults and 30 children were signed up.
Through an arrangement with Elizabethtown College’s occupational therapy graduate program and a York County nonprofit called Connections, CV Seeds offers early intervention services to children with identified developmental needs, including playgroups, speech therapy and motor skills therapy.
Its work in housing started just this year. Initial steps have involved eviction prevention counseling and referrals to Tenfold and other county resources. It’s been challenging, Kime and Hershey said, given the area’s shortage of affordable housing and shelter space.
“It’s complicated,” Hershey said. “It’s hard.”
Street outreach
It was the housing issue that led CV Seeds representatives to begin attending East Lampeter Township meetings, Hershey said. The supervisors increasingly were discussing housing needs, and CV Seeds saw an opportunity to be a voice for those who were struggling.
The supervisors had included $10,000 for street outreach in the township’s 2024 budget. In August, they heard presentations from several organizations, including CV Seeds, as well as representatives from Conestoga Valley School District and the Lancaster County Homelessness Coalition.
The following month, they voted to engage CV Seeds. The nonprofit “came with the most passion,” Supervisor Roger Rutt said.
The work will extend over the next 12 months, Hershey and Kime said. They anticipate doing the front-line outreach work themselves but hope to involve the broader community in the effort, too. One option CV Seeds is considering is holding periodic outreach events; volunteers could help out with warm beverages and snacks, hygiene kits and the like.
The team plans to meet with homeless individuals and families and with the managers of the hotels and motels where many of them stay. As they meet people and connect them to resources, they will be documenting their work, providing East Lampeter Township with a more accurate and detailed picture of the homelessness within its borders.
CV Seeds has been meeting with the township to rough out a game plan, goals and expectations. “We’re really figuring it out together,” Hershey said.
The team also has been engaging for the past year with the Homelessness Coalition, attending its meetings and learning the ropes. Street outreach is a natural outgrowth of CV Seeds’ work to date, and a welcome one, said Deb Jones, director of the coalition’s administrative office.
“This collaboration of the municipality and local social services to address needs in their own community is exemplary,” she said.
Nonprofits “play a crucial role in providing essential services,” township Supervisor Ethan Demme said. He said he’s glad the township has connected with CV Seeds and looks forward to strengthening the relationship going forward.
Student homelessness
The School District of Lancaster has the county’s largest number of homeless students. Conestoga Valley School District is No. 2. As of October, more than 30 CV students were staying in hotels and about 150 were reportedly living with friends or relatives, according to district data.
The definition of homelessness can vary depending on context. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, HUD, counts people in shelters or on the street. School districts use the U.S. Department of Education’s definition under the McKinney Vento Act, which includes individuals doubling up with friends and family or staying in hotels.
Concern around outdoor homelessness in the township increased earlier this year in the wake of two events: The closure in June of a low-barrier overnight shelter in downtown Lancaster, and a subsequent crackdown on overnight trespassing in the city, particularly around Binns Park and the County Government Center.
A number of individuals subsequently migrated to encampments in wooded areas of the township. At least three were then cleared out. This month, Tenfold opened a temporary overnight shelter to serve as a stopgap until the opening of a permanent one that is under construction at Otterbein United Methodist Church, 20 E. Clay St.
So far, CV Seeds has had little contact with individuals sleeping outside. A few calls have come in seeking resources such as food, sleeping bags or tents, Kime said.
Longer spokes
Much of CV Seeds’ work involves partnership, and that will continue as it evolves and expands, Hershey and Kime said. As its website puts it, the idea isn’t to reinvent the wheel, but to extend the spokes.
The organization is “on the hunt” for a headquarters, Kime said, which would serve as a one-stop shop for services and resources. The hope is to find a location along a main route near a bus stop, to minimize transportation barriers.
In the meantime, local churches have been generous in opening their doors. CV Seeds’ ESL classes, for example, take place at Faith Church, 2124 Old Philadelphia Pike.
CV Seeds is grateful for the opportunity to help its community, Kime and Hershey said.
“We’re excited and hopeful,” Kime said.
