Voices of Our City Choir receives $15,000 from The Hervey Family Fund at the San Diego Foundation

Last month Voices of Our City Choir received a generous grant of $15,000 from The Hervey Family Fund at the San Diego Foundation. This gift allows us to welcome new voices into this unique creative community for unsheltered San Diegans. We are continuing to invest in street outreach and mobile showers to bring new adults into our open doors. Because Voices’ work is rooted in community — the center of which is our Choir Members who have rebuilt their lives out of homelessness — together we will continue to encourage new members in their new chapter.

Our supporters hear their sound investment in the songs and stories of our choir members. That sound is full of soul, funk, and joy. The San Diego Foundation’s extraordinary gift builds on the generosity and trust of our supporter community. Thank you for sharing this moment of gratitude with us. There is more work to do, and it’s possible with you.

Voices of Our City Choir gets special mention in The New York Times

(photo by Abdul Kircher for The New York Times)

Voices of Our City Choir has a special mention in The New York Times' series, Headway, which explores the world's challenges, seeking promising solutions and progress. Last month, photographer Adbul Kircher attended Voices’ rehearsal with his camera in tow, to capture that “something essential” held between us all, no matter our backstories.

Voices’ Choir Member, Matt K, shares his experience with homelessness and with Voices’ Choir in the New York Times’ article “What Don’t You Know About Homelessness?”.

“The best way I can describe [Voices of Our City Choir] is it’s like an instant family,” says Choir Member Matt K in his New York Times interview. He first heard the Choir perform at a local library.

When Matt attended Choir, he encountered what “was probably as important as getting food: just human contact.” 17 years ago, Matt lost his job and began living in his van. Matt says, “When you know there’s kindness in the world, it helps.” We are honored The New York Times mentions Voices of Our City Choir among progressive, promising communities for the global challenge of homelessness.

Stories like this remind us that your support allows us to offer essentials—showers, clean socks, community meals—yet it is the full experience within this welcoming space that draws in new faces, new voices, every week. Donations to Voices of Our City Choir support a space for our unsheltered neighbors to encounter kindness, friendship, and nourishment beyond the body — a place “invisible” people are welcomed by name. Your kindness and generosity move an unsheltered neighbor off the streets and into community

VOICES OF OUR CITY CHOIR SELECTED!

Grantees with Mark Stuart and Steve Klosterman. Voices of Our City Choir’s CEO Steph Johnson, far right. Photo from the San Diego Foundation.

This year, Voices of Our City Choir was chosen among nine other nonprofits as the first recipients of Jay Kahn’s generous $100M legacy to San Diego. Khan left the third-largest unrestricted gift to a U.S. community foundation. Voices will receive the initial $50,000 in February—a transformative gift for the small-but-mighty nonprofit. With the San Diego Foundation’s $150,000 funding over the next three years, Voices will welcome new members to its creative community for adults experiencing homelessness.

Voices of Our City Choir’s music & arts program helps move members from living unhoused towards shelter and self-sufficiency. Since relocating to Bankers Hill last year, the nonprofit brings its outreach, life skills programming, meals, and music rehearsals to a neighborhood with limited resources for adults living unhoused.

“Seven years ago, we began this work out of a shared love of music and the human connection it offers us all,” says Steph Johnson, Voices’ CEO and Creative Director. “It is especially meaningful that the San Diego Foundation chose to honor Jay Khan’s legacy first through his love of music. This initial $50,000 gift allows Voices of Our City Choir to bring healing, song, and much-needed services to unsheltered San Diegans at a pivotal moment of need.”

Voices of Our City Choir, 2020 Golden-Buzzer Winner on NBC’s America’s Got Talent,

continues to receive national recognition for its unique model addressing the homeless epidemic. Last Spring, the nonprofit was selected as an Investee by San Diego Social Venture Partners. The award included a gift of $25,000 plus two years of strategic consulting to support Voices in tackling one of San Diego’s most pressing challenges. According to the Community Performance Dashboard, published in April 2021 by the Regional Task Force on Homelessness, 23% of all unhoused San Diego clients who are placed in shelters become homeless again within 2 years.

“Voices is doing something different, and donors are responding to the Choir’s innovation and

inspiring performances” says Lindsey Seegers, Voices’ Deputy Executive Director. “This

extraordinary $150,000 gift builds on the generosity and trust of our supporter community.

Voices’ donors hear their sound investment in the songs and stories of our choir members. And that sound is full of soul, funk, and joy.”