QUALITY CHILD CARE
Wesley Community Center serves a large number of homeless children living in emergency shelters and/or transitional housing facilities and is the oldest and one of the very few quality childcare centers in rural Nueces County. Our programs offer a healthy, developmentally appropriate learning experience that nurtures children to build confidence, character, and self-worth.

Each year, Wesley's childcare program provides services to hundreds of homeless children, children placed in our care by Child Protective Services (CPS), and children of low to mid-income parents. The children receive the best of care from loving and nurturing staff members. Wesley has a well-trained staff that uses a diverse curriculum, which allows children to grow cognitively and socially. 97% of our children meet their social, emotional, and physically targeted developmental milestones.

Unique to the Corpus Christi community, Wesley Community Center is the only agency that provides childcare services to homeless families at no cost to the family or the shelter/transitional housing facility in which they reside. We provide daily roundtrip transportation between our facility and the five area homeless shelters that house families with children as well as between neighboring schools and our Corpus Christi Center. Our childcare centers are open from 7:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. Monday through Friday. Without transportation services, many of our children would not be able to access our services.

Homeless Parents are provided childcare while they participate in activities that lead to education, employment, permanent housing and/or seeking medical treatment. Childcare, while parents are working, is unlimited as long as the family is residing in a shelter or transitional housing. Each year, our homeless program successfully serves over 150 homeless children and families. Wesley staff prepares and provides over 28,000 meals for all our daycare children meeting 2/3 of their daily nutritional needs. 95% of our total enrollment are families who live at or below the poverty level.

MOTHER & CHILD HOME
Our Mother & Child Home, the only permanent housing facility of its kind in Nueces County for homeless children and their mothers, opened in the spring of 2015. Mother & Child Home provides apartment units with bedrooms and private bathrooms, a community kitchen with private pantry and refrigerators for each family, a common living and eating area, laundry room, play area, and case management for the families. Documented, eligible women must be drug-free, working or attending school, abide by the policies of Mother & Child Home, and pay rent of no more than 30% of their gross monthly income and associated fees.

Mother & Child provides the benefit of one more step of support between transitional housing and permanent housing. All of the program participants will have come from transitional housing and have become used to accessing case management services as well as local supportive services. Although they may be ready to move to permanent housing, they are often in need of safety net services to transition them toward further self-sufficiency and independence. Mother & Child Home fills that need. The women and their children live in a small community of up to eight women in similar life situations. Overseen by the Executive Director and served daily by the case manager, residents are encouraged to actively participate in case management, access supportive services as necessary, participate in resident activities/meetings, parent activities, and become active, engaged members of the community. The success of Mother & Child cannot be measured simply by the nights of lodging or meals served but by the deep, significant, positive impact that this life-changing project will impart. Mother & Child Home will literally break the chains of poverty and homelessness for these women and their children for generations to come.

FOOD PANTRIES
Wesley operates food pantries at both of our locations in Corpus Christi and Robstown that serve over 100,000 people each year, the majority of whom are families with children and senior citizens. Our Robstown pantry is the only pantry open weekly in rural Nueces County and includes the city of Robstown as well as the Calallen, Annaville. Bluntzer, and Petronila areas. Our Corpus Christi pantry is open Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday and serves Corpus Christi citywide. At the request of the Food Bank of Corpus Christi, our pantry service areas were expanded due to the large number of other food pantry closures. Both our Pantry locations are open 9:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.