Drive By Blessings is a faith based non profit organization based in a small community in north Phoenix called Tramonto. In May 2015, our family had to learn how to deal with some personal and traumatic events, causing our children to experience symptoms of PTSD. In an effort to help our family rise above the devastation we decided that we needed to find something positive to focus on and knew that finding an opportunity to serve others would be just the thing. When approaching our boys with the choice of who and where to serve, they responded with, " we should start a company that makes Blessing Bags for the homeless." And so that's what we did. Through our initial efforts to help the homeless, we found the Mana House - a transitional living facilty for homeless veterans. Drive By Blessings began serving meals to the 51 veteran residents of Mana House in August 2015.  Our endeavors to serve our veterans allowed us to evolve into an organization focused on serving and supporting the homeless veterans at Mana House.

Here's what Drive By Blessings has accomplished since August, 2015:

17meals served, bringing over 110 new volunteers to the Mana House
Thousands of clothing, food and hygiene items, donated to the Mana House
Served Christmas dinner to over 70 homeless people and veterans on Christmas day.
Fully furnished 6 veterans apartments since January 31st. On track to furnish 3-4 veterans apartments each month.
Drive By Blessings filed for 501c3 tax exempt status, with 5 Board members, and almost 20 "full time" volunteer team members.
Nominated for the 2015 "Volunteer of the Year" award, through Catholic Charities.

Currently, Drive By Blessings is establishing ourselves as an organization that provides support to homeless veterans.  Our goals for the remaining 2016 year include:
Obtaining our official 501c3 non profit status
Applying for grants, allowing us to lease a warehouse or office space to house our donations and become a furniture donation warehouse in the North Phoenix area to veterans in need.
Establish our Boots on the Ground program - created to involved the veterans we serve in opportunities to work or volunteer with us so as to reduce their propensitiy to feel isolated or depressed upon moving out of the Mana House. With veteran suicide being a serious issue in our country, Boots on the Ground aims to supply our veterans with a sense of purpose and fulfillment, ensuring their success over homelessness, utilizing their talents and skills sets to help improve our organization and/or the lives of other veterans.
Continuing to raise awareness of the veteran homelessness issue, by involving people from our communities, with the opportunities to serve our veterans either through their involvement with Drive By Blessings, or by coordinating them to serve a meal down at Mana House.
As you can see, since our creation in May 2015, we have grown leaps and bounds. Our faith, our passion, and our friends, volunteers and supporters, have allowed us this privilege, where we get to make a direct impact in the lives of veterans who are deserving of a hand up.
When Owen and Aidan Kearns wanted to start a company to help rememdy their pain and PTSD, they then had no idea just how much of an impact Drive By Blessings would have on everyone involved. 

Many lives have been touched, many veterans have felt and received our love and support, and our family has successfully created purpose out of our pain, allowing us substantial healing and growth. We are blessed beyond compare!

- Karynda Kearns
Drive By Blessings President & Co-founder

 






For more photos or updates please visit:
www.facebook.com/drivebyblessingsaz


Recently published story about Drive By Blessings on the Catholic Charities webpage:

https://www.catholiccharitiesaz.org/veterans/community-of-volunteers-help-mana-house-veterans


Drive By Blessings website coming soon:
www.drivebyblessings.org