Freedom House’s Gallery of Hope Puts a Face on Homelessness

Each year Freedom House, a homeless shelter and family resource in Green Bay, Wis., holds a fundraising event to help support the work of the organization. Last year, photographer Mark Hawkins captured images throughout the facility, beautifully illustrating Freedom House’s good works and the families it serves.

Hawkins printed dozens of images and mounted them in a modern bare-metal-and-cardboard style, inspired by Chase Jarvis’s Seattle 100 project. The images were used to create the “Gallery of Hope,” a stunning collection on display during the annual fundraiser.

Get Inspired: 10 of Our Favorite Customer Projects of 2015

Throughout the year, we’ve been awed and inspired by the innovative work our customers have created: from wall murals and tote bags to gallery exhibits and social statements. As the year draws to a close, we’ve been reflecting on some of our favorites, and thought we’d share them with you again. While there were many more excellent projects that we featured over the year, here are 10 of the blogs we thought our readers would enjoy revisiting as much as we did:

6 FInishedChurch’s Sleek New Student Center: Clear Lake Press transformed St. Thomas More Catholic Newman Center in the Minnesota State University Campus’ student center into a fun gathering spot. “It was one of those projects, when it started, I was extremely nervous about it,” says Eric Erickson, who used LexJet Print-N-Stick Fabric for the wall mural. “All of those nerves were laid to rest as we were installing it.

A Gallery That Highlights Hope for the Homeless

Green Bay, Wis., wedding photographer Mark Hawkins is the type of pro who stays connected to his clients. So when one of the brides he photographed asked him to help Freedom House‘s fundraising event, Gallery of Hope, he was happy to keep the connection alive, plus support a great cause that she worked for.

mark h 5Freedom House is a program in Green Bay geared to ending the cycle of homelessness by providing families with shelter, food, clothing, education, counseling, discipline and spiritual guidance. “Freedom House does all this awesome stuff for them, while not babying them at all,” Hawkins says. “And they have such an awesome track record.” According to Freedom House’s website, 92 percent of the families helped by the organization never become homeless again.