State funding helps St. Augustine nonprofit build campus for women facing homelessness

ST. AUGUSTINE, Fla. — Alpha-Omega Miracle Home in St. Augustine celebrated a new campus Thursday, thanks to $3.5 million from the state along with funding and help from the city and county.

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Now, the nonprofit can house, counsel, and educate even more single moms and senior women facing homelessness.

“Whether that looks like mental health counseling, whether that looks like partnering you with someone for trauma healing, what does that look like in order for us to help you get to a point of self-sufficiency and to break the cycles?” Bridget Varnedoe said.

Varnedoe once received help from the very organization she’s now the executive director of.

“I’ve been full circle: resident, volunteer, now staff member, board member. So I think that for where we’re going, I have full understanding,” she added.

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The site of the new campus on Collins Avenue sits on seven acres of land. Right now, a renovated house serves as the front office, and will eventually also house a day care.

The new campus will have space for counselors, a dentist, a doctor, a hair stylist, 12 affordable housing units, and apartment homes with 130 beds.

The need is great, CEO Lisa Franklin says. In June, the organization began getting a large volume of calls for help.

“We will be in this next year really trying to raise the funds to build the apartments and the community care center, and the dorm,” Franklin added.

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She says the team has come far, but has a long way to go.

“We need the community’s help more than ever,” she added.

To Franklin, it’s about changing lives not only now, but for generations to come.

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