OVIEDO / COMMUNITY / INSPIRATION
Joan Faulkner
The days between
school meals.
By Rob Urban
The school calendar looks different depending on the household reading it. One family sees a break from packing lunches. Another sees several days when a child’s usual breakfast and lunch will need to come from somewhere else.
At HOPE Helps in Oviedo, that second version of the calendar is built into the work. The Kids of HOPE program helps fill the food gap during school breaks. It is one part of an organization led by Joan Faulkner, whose responsibilities connect immediate needs with the less visible work of keeping families stable.
Faulkner is HOPE’s president and CEO. Her job encompasses administration, programs, fundraising, and the relationships needed to make the organization function. That is a broad description until you put an actual household in the middle of it. A family may need groceries today, help with a bill next week, and someone to explain which other resources are available. The organization has to make those pieces work together.
Oviedo is a fitting place to examine that kind of leadership. Community care happens through familiar places and repeat relationships. A pantry, a thrift store, a school-supply event, and a conversation with a case manager can become parts of the same network of support.
A neighbor
responded.
An organization
grew.
HOPE’s founding story belongs to Krissy Todd and a couple she met at her son’s soccer practice in 2006. They were expecting a child and had lost jobs, housing, and eventually their car. Todd’s family and community helped them find temporary accommodation, replace documents, and move toward employment. The experience exposed how difficult it could be for a family to reach existing services.
Faulkner’s place in the story is the leadership of the organization that grew from that response. Preserving the distinction gives both kinds of work their due. Seeing a need and beginning an effort is one achievement. Maintaining programs, paying attention to changes, and keeping people and resources coordinated is another.
Her staff biography offers a few details outside the executive title: pottery thrown on a wheel, photography, scrapbooking, cooking, and an astonishing 59 first cousins. That is a family reunion with a logistics department.
A backpack they
get to choose.
In coverage of HOPE’s 2021 school-supply event, Faulkner described children choosing backpacks and moving through the supplies as if shopping. The choice was part of the experience. Children could take part in preparing for school instead of merely receiving an identical package.
A backpack is an everyday object, but a child carries it in public for months. Being able to choose one gives them a little ownership over the beginning of the school year. The adults have met a practical need while leaving room for preference and excitement.
The calendar
keeps moving.
The organization’s food pantry supplies shelf-stable groceries alongside produce, meat, and bread, with hygiene items available as supplies permit. The pantry also uses a choice model, with volunteers helping clients select groceries. A household brings knowledge of its own meals, preferences and needs. Making room for those decisions is a useful form of respect.
Its regular operation matters as much as a special event. A household’s need for food is repetitive. The response has to be dependable enough to become part of a plan.
School breaks introduce another pressure into that plan. Kids of HOPE connects food support with case management and help navigating other resources. A parent can address the immediate gap while also seeking assistance with the wider household situation. The calendar keeps moving, and children need to eat while the adults work on the larger problems.
Even the packaging gets attention. HOPE describes including easy-open items for children who may be home while a parent works. A meal bag becomes more useful when someone has thought about the person who will actually open it. I like that detail because it shows care extending beyond the moment of the handoff.
This is where the leadership becomes tangible. A program must be stocked, staffed, communicated, and available at a useful time. None of those steps is glamorous. They determine whether a family’s trip to seek help ends with something useful.
Notice
who cannot
get here.
HOPE’s Emergency Network Service extends the organization’s reach to people who are homebound because of age, disability, or medical circumstances. Volunteers coordinate weekly home visits for eligible participants. Support can include food and responses to specific practical needs, such as basic repairs.
It is a thoughtful adjustment to the usual model of assistance. Opening a door does little for someone unable to travel to it. The organization has to notice the people missing from its waiting room, including those whose absence may be explained by the very circumstances that make support necessary.
The regular visit also creates continuity. A familiar volunteer can become someone who knows whether the arrangement is still working. Keeping the visits useful means paying attention and having a way to act on what is learned.
Elsewhere in Seminole County, Tekoa Pouerie’s work at The Sharing Center addresses a related range of needs. The presence of multiple organizations is useful to understand. A county’s care network is made of different entry points, service areas, specialties, and people who can connect a household with the next appropriate resource.
Help with the
first deposit.
The Financial Freedom Series combines classes with individual budgeting support. For qualifying registered clients, completing three classes and a budget review can lead to a $100 contribution to a savings account. Public course offerings include options in English and Spanish and subjects such as credit, car buying, and preparing for school or holiday expenses.
That small funded beginning is an interesting detail. Being told to save and being helped to establish a savings account are different experiences. The program attaches a concrete action to the instruction. It also allows the discussion to be personalized around a household’s bills and obligations.
The thrift-store receipt
has another purpose.
Meanwhile, The HOPE Chest turns donated goods into another source of support. Proceeds sustain operations and programs, while registered clients can receive needed items through the resource center. Clothing, furniture, and household goods can travel through the same store toward different purposes.
A person shopping there may simply want a useful item at a good price. Their purchase still participates in the work. The organization gives community members several ways to contribute, including time, goods, and ordinary shopping, alongside direct financial gifts.
Faulkner leads this work with a team that includes client-program, finance, administrative, and retail staff. The different responsibilities are essential to the whole. A caring interaction at the front desk depends on a functioning organization behind it.
What I admire about Faulkner’s leadership is the attention it asks us to give to ordinary time. A school break, a weekly visit, a grocery trip: these are the intervals in which a family lives. An organization becomes valuable when its help fits those intervals.
Faulkner’s work is visible in the calendar: school breaks anticipated, pantry days maintained, home visits repeated, and another group of children choosing what they need for school.
About Joan Faulkner and HOPE Helps
Who is Joan Faulkner?
Joan Faulkner is president and CEO of HOPE Helps in Oviedo, Florida. Her responsibilities include administration, programs, fundraising, donor relationships and community outreach.
Did Joan Faulkner found HOPE Helps?
HOPE’s founding story begins with Krissy Todd helping a family she met in 2006. Faulkner leads the organization that developed from that community response.
What does Kids of HOPE do?
Kids of HOPE provides food support for registered children during school breaks. Families can also connect with case managers and other resources through HOPE Helps.
Sources: HOPE Helps’ history, staff and program pages, checked September 2026; and Matt Trezza’s August 2021 FOX 35 reporting on the Back to School Bash. Reflections are Rob Urban’s.
I write about the choices that make an organization useful to people. For more of my work, or a conversation about yours, meet Rob.