Interview Q&A
How long have you been in business?
We've been providing services to youth and their families in McLean County, Illinois for 40 years.
What is your primary product or service?
Our services are counseling, outreach, survival aid, and transitional housing for runaway, homeless, and street youth. We seek to keep youth safe, we help them reunite with their families, and we help them learn to handle daily stressors. We also provide supportive services to youth to help them stay in school, and we lead drug prevention classes to help young people avoid involvement with alcohol and other drugs.
How did you first become interested in your line of business? (if owner) - What is your background? (If owner or store manager)
We've built a strong agency by purposely seeking out intelligent, compassionate individuals with many different backgrounds. This enables us to see problems from a variety of perspectives and gives us a broad set of tools. Our expansive professional and educational backgrounds creates services and service delivery that yield strong results for youth and families facing difficult situations.
How do you differentiate yourself from other businesses in your category and area?
We are proud to be the only agency who seeks out and works with young people who are disconnected from their families. We want them to be safe, to reconnect to caring adults, and to see new possibilities for a bright future.
Provide detailed directions to your location
Our office is at the corner of Front & Morris Streets in Bloomington, Illinois. We're on the west side of town, one block south of Washington Street. There is plenty of parking in our lot, and several bus routes stop within a block of our office. The Constitution Trail crosses right in front of our front door, too. You can also reach us on Facebook or use the email like on our website, www.projectoz.org.
What type of payments do you accept?
Hey ! There are NO fees to get counseling, education, or survival aid. We have an application process for transitional housing, but the application and several months of housing are free, too. We've been leading Parents Forever courses for adults with children who are divorcing or separating, and there is a $125 fee for that course, but if it's a hardship, some of the cost may be waived.
Which areas do you service?
Our drug education classes and high school student retention services are in McLean County's schools. Our outreach to runaway and homeless youth reaches throughout the county. Services in 24/7 crisis intervention and counseling cover Illinois' two largest counties, McLean and Livingston.
What are your hours of operation?
Our office is open weekdays from 8:30-4:00, but that's only one way to reach us. We are on-call 24/7 every day of the year for crisis response to runaway, homeless, and street youth anywhere in McLean and Livingston counties through our connection to the hotline at 309-827-4005 or 1-800-570-PATH.
What is the best compliment anyone can give you?
Ah, there are so many great things that can happen when we work with young people, that compliments range from, "Thanks for getting me safely back home," to "I'm so glad I found Project Oz." One young man wrote us a note, saying, "Thanks for believing in me when no one else did." A teenage girl liked us so much she said, "I'm making recommendations!"
What is your favorite quote or Bible verse?
"However difficult life may seem, there is always something you can do and succeed at." Stephen Hawking