Safety Harbor Neighborhood Family Center Inc

The Safety Harbor Neighborhood Family Center DBA Mattie Williams Neighborhood Family Center (MWNFC) has served the community as a Juvenile Welfare Board (JWB) of Pinellas County, FL, funded agency since 1996. The Center provides a safety net for financially struggling families and especially their children in its designated coverage area: Safety Harbor, Eastern Clearwater, and Oldsmar.

Last year, MWNFC had over 25,600 individuals and families in need of help walk through our doors. Ninety-nine percent of families we served had incomes below 80% of the Average Median Income.

Our motto is to “bridge the gap” using a combination of services to help individuals and families to stay in their homes and keep the family together. These services are designed as a hand up, not a hand out. Our goal is to help our clients achieve success and self-sufficiency

The four main components of our program are: 

Youth development – which targets school readiness and school success; critical basic needs; financial assistance; career development.

The Center’s Youth Development Program includes Bright Ideas Youth Development (BIYD) After School and Summer Camps for elementary and middle school children, and a Family Support Program for families. These programs meet the strategic goals of School Success and Preventing Child Abuse and Neglect as defined by JWB.  

The BIYD Program promotes school readiness and success through engaging, structured activities that improve academic skills and provides youth a safe environment. The program is designed to remove any barriers preventing our community’s at risk children from reaching their fullest potential.

Critical basic needs includes free food, clothing and hygiene products, such as deodorant, shampoo, soap, baby diapers, wipes, depends, and tampons—items are not covered by food stamps. Our Mattie's Kids program provides ready-to-eat food over the weekend to kids who otherwise might go hungry.

We also provide limited financial assistance to families facing shut off of water or electricity, and assistance with transportation emergencies including bus passes. We also assist clients in filling out online applications for food stamps, Medicaid and cash assistance.

In Career Development, our Family Assistance Coach works one on one with individuals to help them to map out and achieve their long-term goals. Four workstations in our main facility for individuals to have internet access for emails and job searches. Our separate computer lab provides basic classes for adults in office software and is available to the children in our Youth Development program

Without computer access, children fall behind in school, adults are unable to tap into the valuable resources on the internet, and job opportunities become limited.