Our Mission

Our mission is to mobilize volunteers and entities-government, faith, health, business and the community at large to partner with us in filling the gaps that exists in the delivery of fundamental social services to the elderly and disabled citizen.

Our Vision

The ultimate vision of Bridge The Gap is to be the community’s alternative service provider for all elderly and persons with disabilities in need with no place to turn. To postpone or eliminate institutionalized care while promoting self-sufficiency and independence.

Our History

In response to an appeal from then-President Ronald Reagan, urging citizens and businesses to volunteer in their communities, Catherine H. McNair, lovingly referred to as Mother McNair, founded Bridge The Gap. (BTG) at the Moncrief Senior Citizens Community Center in 1982 to help the poor and the elderly who had fallen through the cracks of the welfare system for one reason or the other. She mobilized volunteers – government, faith, health, business, and the community at large to partner with the agency in its effort to deliver fundamental social services to those in need.

Mother Catherine McNair once told the story of the day she saw an elderly woman in tears clutching the first roll of paper towels she had ever owned in her life. She also recalled the time she found another old woman—a double amputee—alone in the room she lived in, on a bed she has not been able to leave in days, hungry, dirty, smelting in the summer heat. These are the kinds of people Bridge The Gap, believes have fallen through the cracks of the social system. This is why Bridge The Gap was started, this is why we exit.

In the early years, sponsors donated hundreds of pounds of Personal Hygiene items, Handicapped and elderly having to use walking sticks, canes, and even wheelchairs would line up for blocks for the bare necessities like a toothbrush. Mrs. McNair kept trying to get the other agencies to help out. In 1983 she was directed to Robert Gray, then director of United Way. She told him her story and he was so warm and so easy to talk to that it seemed that he was feeling the very pains she was. He put his hands on her shoulders and told her not to worry, because he would help her. Shortly after the United Way funding began and a strong lasting relationship developed. Mrs. McNair continued to make many more contacts over the years, as other joined in her efforts to better the community and lives of those who lives there.

Bridge The Gap has successfully served the needs of thousands of Jacksonville’s elderly, homebound and handicapped solely due to support and partnership of people like you, Chief Jerome Spates of the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Department, and Sheriff Nathaniel Glover, Senator Betty Holzendorf, Representative W. Dennis, Tracey Gaffney, and Channel 4. As well as the City of Jacksonville and its Adult Service Division, St. Vincent’s Hospital, Housing for Urban Development (HUD), the Second Harvest Food Bank, The Mayor’s Teen Volunteer (MTV) funding foundation, a host of Churches, area Business Leaders, community volunteers and numerous other agencies that work by our side.

Today, Yvonne McNair- Lane is Mrs. McNair’s surviving daughter who continue the mission that her mother began over 35 years ago. Just as Mrs. McNair, her daughter is a hands-on Executive Director. Operating on a shoestring budget, she is a non-paid staff. She and the Volunteers of Bridge The Gap do everything from washing dishes to helping someone balance a checkbook. Driving people to the hospital, delivering sandwiches to the poor and hungry or visiting the elderly shut ins all apart of a daily routine.

If you feel compelled to make a difference in the Jacksonville community we have ways that you can help.

We accept food and in kind donations at our location at 561 W 25th St, Jacksonville, FL 32206