Options for Community Living, Inc. provides housing, support services, and care coordination for people recovering from mental illness and those living with HIV/AIDS or other chronic health conditions. Many of the people we serve were formerly homeless. Options is a private not-for-profit agency, operating on Long Island since 1982. Their goal is to help each program participant and family find stability, improved health and the tools to build productive self-sufficient lives as community members. Yolanda Robano-Gross joined Options for Community Living as Executive Director in 2014 with more than twenty years of prior executive level experience in the healthcare industry. In January of 2021, her role was officially changed to Chief Executive Officer. She is responsible for oversight of all aspects of agency operations and reports directly to the Board of Directors.
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Tommy introduces the show and talks about connecting non-profit organizations, he believes that these organizations are under represented, unrecognized, underfunded and overlooked. Tommy and his special guest today are here to amplify the message and get nonprofits connected. Tommy then introduces his special guest Yolanda Robano Gross, has about 20 years of work, experience, and success in the nonprofit sector - she has a masters degree in social work as well as a mass amount of personal work experience in the field. Yolanda is the Executive Director at Options for Community Living, she took on this role in 2014, however in January of 2021 her role was changed to become Chief Executive Officer. Options for Community Living provides housing, support services and care coordination for mental illness, people who are struggling with HIV and Aids, and other chronic health conditions - people they have served have formerly been homeless. They provide options for community living and a window of opportunity towards a better life.
Options for Community Living has been using mentoring as a way to get through to people in need. According to Yolanda the reason they have been using mentoring is because mentors help form your path, she personally has been inspired by her mentors and has had a great experience working with mentors who have shaped her professional and personal life. The way Options for Community Living does this is by getting a group of students, the organizations have reached out to students from all walks of life, including college students such as students at Stonybrook University. Yolanda believes that high schools need to be more involved, she said that she had high school students who had to gain a mandatory 24 hours of mentoring and those students get a taste of life, it helps nurture youth to progress to be individuals who give back. Both Tommy and Yolanda talk about how their similar personal development growing up in Long Island was what drew them to the nonprofit sector.
When talking about collaboration, Tommy asks Yolanda about the ways in which Options for Community Living collaborates with people as well as organizations internally and externally. Yolanda describes a story about a girl who was aging out within their children's program and she was on the track of leaving their program without a home, therefore ending up homeless. After getting more support and guidance from Options for Community Living, she was able to go to school and get a job, she then bought a car and is now working and is stable - Options for Community Living was able to help a girl grow and become an independent young woman with stability. Three years later she is still someone who is in need of mentorship, she comes once a month to talk to someone, however she is on her own two feet, living on her own, making her own decisions and money. Yolanda said “She was someone who didn't have organic support, so she had optional support,” and the optional support is just a community that is giving you the tools to get on the right track.
Yolanda describes what Options for Community Living as a nonprofit organization needs as it continues to grow and do great things. According to Yolanda the major need is unrestricted funding and donors, even though there is government funding it is extremely tough and barely makes a dent. Yolanda presses that they also need people to get more involved, as they need people to help keep the lights on and the doors open for the people in need under the Options for Community Living umbrella. Yolanda says they could not shut down during covid as they are working tirelessly to make sure that they keep valuable lives safe. Yolanda breaks down a lot of the many needs, but focuses on how urgent the need for funding and the need for more people to get involved. Tommy closes out the show and tells the audience how to get connected to Girls Inc, and queues Always Freyday.
