I will not dispute that Breaking Free needed the space. Even though at the time Breaking Free owned two office buildings at 770 and 778 University Avenue West in St. Paul, staff members were working 2 or 3 to a tiny office and weekly Sisters of Survival and Alumni groups were dangerously overcrowded.
For the record, this is is the building that Breaking Free had hoped to buy, at 962 University Avenue West in St. Paul. I have been informed that at the time there was some discussion of moving the administrative staff from 778 University to the new building and turning 778 into a second transitional housing program.
Donations poured in over the next month. An anonymous donor pledged a $25,000 match, which spurred on more donations.
In August 2014, Vednita Carter was able to announce the following:
Breaking Free had exceeded its fundraising goal by $22,373, which is a testament to the power of Breaking Free's message and the organization's reach at that time, and also to the good will of donors in the community.
Now this uplifting story gets a little sticky. Reliable sources tell me that Breaking Free never bought the building, due to financing problems with the bank. Instead of letting the many generous people who donated to the building fund know what had happened, Breaking Free maintained radio silence on the subject for months. Those same sources report that Breaking Free has never publicly commented on what happened with the building and to the $102,373 raised by donors.
My sources did add that an email was sent directly to those who donated to the campaign after Breaking Free reportedly received a number of concerned emails from donors, but that was several months later in the winter of 2015. The email from Breaking Free to donors allegedly stated the reasons why the 962 University Avenue building was not purchased and that the organization was still looking for a new building to buy for new office space.
The building campaign was conducted more than two years ago. Breaking Free never did purchase a new building. In fact it lost the 778 University Avenue building reportedly due to zoning issues and the organization's lack of due diligence when purchasing the building. (I plan to write about that at a later date.) There have been no public updates about the status of the funds raised in the summer of 2014. So I ask Breaking Free:
What happened to the $102,373 Breaking Free raised to purchase a new building?
Where's the accountability to the good people who donated that money?
Will Breaking Free publicly account for those funds after all this time?
Funny! I know of a business that was recently lied to about some funding they were suppose to get for some major upgrades at their permanent housing locations. They were told that there was never a grant for such work. The company was called by other staff members of Break Free to start the work, cause they heard that the funding was approved. But the company never got a down payment, and then were told that the funds they received were not for that work now. I do know that there were many man hours figuring out what upgrades were rather necessary. From my understanding those were many wasted hours, and never compensated for.
ReplyDeleteVery interesting. Thanks for sharing!
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