Her first week on the job in 2006, incoming BHH Executive Director Linda Gove sat down with Board President Gary Peters and Supporter Arthur Remillard to talk about the future of BHH. And it was big.
That year, BHH was embarking on a major capital campaign to build a facility that would better serve the community, with Mr. Remillard making the lead gift in support. BHH programs were expanding, more people were walking through the doors in need of assistance, and BHH’s leaders knew clients would be better served by a center where all services could be accessed under one roof. By 2009, the campaign was still ongoing as the growing organization was operating out of three separate locations, and food was still being distributed out of Friendship Baptist Church, despite the shortage of space and increased demand.
Then, on a Monday evening in August 2009 - the week before BHH’s 3rd annual Bowling for Bread event - a fire broke out in the Assistance Center and quickly spread to the newly opened Job Mentoring Center. Computers, printers, and desks were all destroyed. However, the tragedy that raged through the office helped accelerate the timeline that would consolidate the move to the new building. The community rallied around BHH in support to help make it happen.
In January 2010, BHH opened the doors to its new home, the Remillard Family Resource Center, made possible by the generous support of not only Mr. Remillard and the Gary Peters Family Foundation, but many other foundations and hundreds of individual donors.
In its first year after moving to the new facility, Boca Helping Hands distributed 7,000 bags of groceries to families living at or below the federal poverty line, a record at the time. And the new facility has continued to fulfill BHH leadership’s vision for it - not only meeting the growing need when it opened, but accommodating the growth that has been necessary since. BHH now distributes more pantry bags in a month than it did over an entire year, surpassing 10,000 pantry bags provided in August of 2023.
