PROGRAMS & IMPACT

Major Programs, Accomplishments, and Full-Service Initiatives

For over 100 years, the Clara White Mission flagship Daily Feeding Program at 613 W. Ashley Street, Jacksonville, FL, 32202 has addressed food insecurity among Jacksonville’s homeless and low-income populations. In 2024-2025, the program served over 94,000 hot meals, breakfast, lunch, and dinner to enrolled in-house veterans and breakfast to the homeless daily. By nearly doubling the mission impact, an additional distribution of a second meal is a takeaway for the homeless. This initiative ensures that individuals experiencing hunger receive adequate nutrition and a reprieve from the constant anxiety of food scarcity. This initiative ensures that individuals experiencing hunger receive adequate nutrition and temporary relief from the persistent stress and anxiety associated with food insecurity. Recent reductions in SNAP benefits, combined with staff layoffs resulting from government shutdown-related disruptions, have increased demand for emergency food assistance across the communities served. In response to these heightened needs, the Clara White Mission expanded its Food Distribution initiative to provide packaged food to families through state-supported funding and served 48,962 individuals in the past year.

  • Transitional Housing for Veterans CWM provides 31 transitional housing beds in an 8,000 sq. ft. facility for homeless veterans, including dormitory housing for males only and apartments for females. Veterans receive case management, mental health counseling, employment assistance, life skills training, and access to services to secure permanent housing within six months. The CWM serves an average of 85 (averaged over the last 5 years, including covid period) residents annually. This program honors the commitment to those veterans who have served our country. 

  • Permanent Housing. The Henri Landwirth Veterans Villas (HLVV) 605 Beaver Street, Jacksonville, FL  32202, is a 20,000 sq. ft. facility that was developed in 2017(raised $2.5M). This program offers 16 furnished, affordable one-bedroom apartments for formerly homeless veterans.  In addition, the VA Community Resource and Referral Center (CRRC) leases the ground floor and provides essential stabilization and outreach services that offer long-term independence and resources for formerly homeless veterans and the Clara White Mission

  • Drop-In Center. The Drop-In Center operates five days a week and provides essential services for homeless veterans, showers, laundry, computers, phones, and mail access to approximately 50 individuals daily, addressing immediate needs and serving as a vital referral hub for homeless veterans seeking long-term solutions and an opportunity to get connected to CWM programming

  • Vocational Training: Culinary Arts. Since 2006, over 2,300 students have graduated from the CWM’s vocational programs. CWM targets and empowers individuals with barriers and provides them with the skills and certifications necessary for sustainable employment. The training program was reactivated in 2024 after 2 ½ years of shut-down due to COVID. This program is an important platform for CWM’s role in the workforce development sector. CWM has held licenses from the State of Florida Department of Education, as well as the National Center for Construction Education and Research (NCCER) for 13 years. The CWM training generates partnerships with local, state, and national organizations, validating the Mission’s capacity to implement impactful, scalable programs with outcomes that the disenfranchised community deserves.

  • Eartha’s Farm & Market. In 2011, CWM transformed a 10.5-acre former ash-dump site into a thriving organic farm in a food desert located at 4850 Moncrief Road, Jacksonville, FL 32209. Annually, the farm harvests over 8,2000 lbs. of food, holds more than 25 community workshops on health and nutrition, and receives over 5000 visits to the farmer’s market, including 660 volunteers and 450 youth field trips. Eartha’s Farm & Market provides healthy food options, nutritional education, and agricultural vocational training, benefiting a historically underserved urban core community. This initiative is supported by numerous of community partners that include: the USDA, Jacksonville Jaguars Foundation, Duval Community Health Department, Blue Zone, LISC Jacksonville, the Florida Department of Children & Families, and a City of Jacksonville direct appropriation grant. The opening of the Eartha’s Farm & Market in November, 2023 furthered the expansion and drove smart growth, resident engagement, and long-term sustainability. The Clara White Mission proposes to develop a 28,000 sq. ft facility on the farm site in 2028 with a $2M Federal Appropriation Grant. This will assist with economic infusion and establish EFAM as an agrotourism destination in Northwest Jacksonville, resulting in transformational change in an underserved community. 

  • Over the past two decades, multiple neighborhood studies were completed, but recommendations for improvement remained largely unimplemented, resulting in resident frustration due to unmet commitments and persistent neighborhood conditions. Community members felt overlooked and that prior planning efforts failed to translate into meaningful action. This dynamic began to change when EFAM emerged as a stakeholder and community change-agent, focusing on resident priorities and helping to reestablish trust through visible progress and engagement. With Eartha’s Farm & Market serving as a catalyst, funding from the City of Jacksonville, the State of Florida, the federal government, and private donors is now supporting the implementation of long-standing study recommendations and advancing critical corridor and infrastructure improvements. What was once a long-held vision for economic development is now being realized through coordinated investment, actionable planning, and community-driven implementation that reflects resident input and shared accountability. https://www.news4jax.com/positively-jax/2023/11/10/clara-white-missions-farm-grows-with-community-market-training-center-in-area-considered-food-desert/.

  • The Eartha M. M. White Historical Museum is located within the doors of CWM on the 2nd floor. There is 3000 sq. ft. dedicated to the history of the founder, Dr. Eartha M. M. White. Over 300 visits and tours are conducted at the museum annually, including commercial bus tours, family reunions, enrolled students, school field trips, veteran residents, volunteers, and donors. The museum is the original home of Dr. Eartha M. M. White and preserves her legacy.  Dr. White was a pioneer in social service and civil rights. The museum exhibits highlight African American history in Jacksonville and the evolution of human services in the historic LaVilla community annexed to the city in 1887. Dr. Eartha M. M. White, whose name signifies a "Storehouse to All," was a remarkable humanitarian and philanthropist born on November 8, 1876.  For 97 years, she dedicated her life to serving others, leaving an impression on this community, the state, and the nation. Dr. White was a trailblazer in many fields, becoming one of the first African American social workers in a school teacher, the first female African American realtor, a soprano with the nation’s first African American opera company, and the first African American Census Taker in Florida. At the age of 89, she established the modern Eartha White Nursing Home, an outgrowth of the Old Folks Home she established for African American seniors made homeless by Jacksonville’s great fire of 1901.