Chilled at Tent City

Fellow VISTAs Gabrielle, Andrea and I spent a chilly day in downtown Toledo today at the 20th annual Tent City, a weekend-long homeless advocacy event organized by 1matters.org under tents set up on the Civic Center Mall adjacent to all the government buildings.

A former homeless man cum stand-up comic, executive and passionate advocate was inspired to found 1matters two years ago after singer John Mellencamp visited Tent City before a concert and gave away 60 tickets to the unhoused.

One of the concertgoers came back, expressing surprise that Mellencamp talked to him from the stage and that he actually mattered. 1matters is dedicated to making everyone know that they matter.

(The group prefers the word unhoused to homeless because it is freer of preconceived notions and allows people to focus on the fact that these are people without homes. The unhoused are referred to as "guests" throughout the event.)

I didn't go, but Friday, the opening day, was full of food and music late into the night. On Saturday, the event got down to business.

Project Homeless Connect was a day-long event working to connect the unhoused with medical and dental service, flu shots, haircuts, IDs, birth certificates, winter clothing, assistance with public aid applications and more.

Gabrielle and I agreed the event was one of the more successful, productive and inspiring the Benefit Bank has attended recently. We arrived with an arsenal of three laptops and two mini printers and, working nonstop for almost 7 hours with barely time to scarf down a hotdog, were able to complete about 20 applications on site for food stamps, heating assistance and medicaid for disability.

Our table was under one of the big, white event tents, but the heaters didn't stretch all the way to our corner and the wind kept blowing up the tent sides, letting chilly air in and making the whole structure creak like the beams of a storm-tossed ship, so we were bundled up the whole time, shivering by the end with a combination of cold, hunger and braindeadness.

All in all, a day well-spent :)

Sorting Things Out

I was never able to help sort donated winter clothes for Tent City (a homeless advocacy event held this weekend) this month so I stopped by after work on Thursday to help load the clothes and get them ready to be transported to the event.

There were a ton of donations there, and another truckload was being dropped off as we were loading up the sorted ones. Yay for generousity!



I also sorted out Medicare Part D a little bit more this week by sitting in on a Webinar called "Part D in 2010," about changes to the program.

The Benefit Bank can't sign people up for Medicare, but it does offer applications for a few Medicare supplements, one being Medicare Part D.

Lots of talk of premiums, deductables, donut holes (by the way, where do they get off rebranding something so delicious with something so dull??), coverage gaps, benchmarks, yawwwnnnn -- I actually caught myself dozing off at my desk at one point.

Webinars, by the way, are genius, if you are not familar. You call in like a conference call, but then everyone also clicks a link sent in their emails so that everyone can also see the Power Point slides the speaker is talking about on their computer screens. There were people from across the country on the call. There's also a "chat" window that lets people type questions during the talk.

The Webinar was actually geared more toward people who work with Part D every day, so lots of it was not really relavent for me, but it was free and I did get a better understanding of the basic program structure before they moved on over my head.

Hangin' Out with Day Care Kids

Photo by Don Lamont/Corbis Images

(I'm probably violating some number of copyright laws by using the photo above, but I didn't take any photos of the adorable kids I visited with on my birthday last week -- and they sorely could have used documentation. I'll take my chances.)

On a very dreary, rainy day, I went to a Toledo day care for a site visit (one of the steps to becoming an Ohio Benefit Bank site), but the woman in charge had stepped out for a minute.

I was told to take a seat (in one of the tiny, yellow, plastic, preschooler-sized chairs) in a classroom, where I was immediately seized upon by a dozen giggly, wide-eyed four-year-old girls, hair braided and beaded, clammering over each other, asking a million and one questions: What's your name? Where do you live? Do you have a kid? Do you have a pet? What's their name? Did you make a pumpkin for Halloween?

They were getting served lunch. Just as the server was about to insist I accept a tray of ham, veggies and chocolate milk carton with a straw, the woman I was meeting with stepped in and we left to talk.

(I later found out it was the teacher's birthday that day as well. Crazy coincidence.)

Last week, I had one of the day care employees in one of my trainings, marking the first time I've personally taken an organization from an inquiry about OBB all the way through the process to becoming an official site with a trained counselor. All the rest of my new sites have been ones I inherited in the middle from the last VISTA.

Getting things done. Feels pretty good.

Blessed

Now that I'm getting more comfortable with the job, I caught myself a couple of days ago feeling like I could just coast through the day, logging my hours, doing my time and clocking out, without making any real progress, and no one would be the wiser -- at least for a while.

Immediately I knew I needed an attitude adjustment.

I have been given the gift of a fulltime volunteer job -- a chance to do all the good of a volunteer, but with the time to pursue it full time. I know this year will go faster than I'd like and I don't want to sqaunder my time, or feel like I didn't give it my all at the end of the year.

That day started off chilly, but turned into a beautiful warm, blue-skyed fall day, the kind that can't help but put a smile on your face and restore your motivation.

I feel blessed.

Bags! Bags! Bags!

I realized recently that my collection of cloth bags has more than doubled over the past two months due to various work events and conferences.

Good morning, Reentry Coalition!

This morning -- EARLY this morning -- fellow VISTA Gabrielle and I were sitting down at the ritzy Toledo Club for the Reentry Coalition of Northwest Ohio's Legislative Breakfast.

The breakfast, entitled "Building a Bridge to Effective Reentry," was attended by judges, elected officials, the chief of police, area ministers and other community leaders.

The focus was on the importance of reentry services and an update on the progress in implementing such services in Lucas County and across Ohio.

The program emphasized how reentry does not affect ex-offenders alone -- it is also tied to and touches the lives of the children, families and communities the offender returns to.

A lot of interesting stats were cited by various speakers:

-About 1 in 100 people are currently behind bars in the U.S., the highest percentage in history and a dramatic increase from previous years.

-1 in 31 adults nationwide are under some form of correctional control, which also includes those in halfway houses, on parole and on probation. In Ohio, the percentage is 1 in 25 (one-fourth of Ohioans)!

-10 million children in the U.S. have experienced having a parent in prison at one time(1.5 million currently).

-About two-thirds of released offenders are back behind bars within three years of release.

Illustrating with a personal experience how the correctional system touches the lives of everyone in a community, the executive director of the Reentry Coalition talked briefly about his personal situation. (That's him speaking at the podium in the lefthand corner in the top photo.) The oldest of seven siblings, his youngest brother is currently serving time in a correctional facility.

Another Reentry Coaltion official shared his story of spending nine years behind bars and how much reentry services helped him make the transition back. He said he realized how much of a readjustment reentry can when, just before getting out, he saw a quarter lying on a table -- and didn't recognize what it was.

To wrap up, a pastor urged the audience to consider mentoring a soon-to-be-released offender. Even just a small amount of time can make a difference in showing an ex-offender that someone cares and believes they can make it, even though it seems daunting right now, he said.

He pointed out that, for many of the successful people in the room, their lowest moments are still higher than some people's highest moments. But regardless of stature in the community, gaining trust is a process: "People don't care how much you know before they know how much you care."

Afterward, the executive director, greeting people on his way out, stopped to talk with Gabrielle and I, which was nice of him. He asked what agency we were with and when we said Ohio Benefit Bank, he shook our hands and said "Oh yeah, oh yeah! Good!" enthusiastically.

It's nice to be appreciated.

(Sidenote: The day turned out to be gorgeous and my snazzy red heels, seen above in the pretty leaves outside the food bank, always add festive brightness to my day!)

Multifaith Grows: Hunger is Hunger

Tonight I attended the innaugural Multifaith Harvest Festival at Monroe Street United Methodist Church, a program of Multifaith Grows and the Multifaith Council of Northwest Ohio.

The group would like to see a garden planted at every "faith space" in Toledo, and is willing to teach anyone who wants to get something started by pairing them with an experienced church or grower.

The evening included food, fellowship, singing, speakers and display booths with more information about various gardens and environmental programs around the city. My site, the Toledo Northwestern Ohio Foodbank, had a display.

The posterboard pictured above was one of the most interesting. It had verses or writings from a dozen different religions relating to environmentalism and stewardship of the earth.

While we ate the delicious potluck meal, a nun spoke about hunger not being denominational, racial, etc.

Hunger is hunger.

A young man got lots of applause as he spoke of working with Toledo Grows for the past year, and how working with the plants and chickens has helped mature him and keep him off the streets.

Another man spoke of how, in this high-tech world, we have gotten away from getting our hands dirty -- and the church is no exception.

He shared about his organization turning vacant lots into strawberry fields and orchards for people to come and take what they want with the hope that nothing will ever fall to the ground and rot uneaten.

The closing speaker remarked -- seriously, but to laughter -- that it really shouldn't be such a revelation to till the soil.

As an Islamic saying goes, if someone is not your brother in faith, they are your equal in creation. Everyone there was supportive of and excited about collaborative progress and possibilities.

An inspiring group of people doing cool things in the community.