“And Use Soap!”

Amid our holiday bustle, let us pause to consider the wonders of soap and its personal hygiene cousins. 

Public health documentation indicates that the introduction of bathing, and bathing with soap, was the turning point to send disease rates downward in a number of infectious disease events from the mid-1800s through the late 20^th century. The disease downturns often came years, if not decades, ahead of vaccine development. [i]

(Parents of the civilized world, now you can show your children the written evidence that bathing with soap is truly a benefit to individual and public health. “And use soap!” should not be limited to the speech of June Cleaver, after all.)

So when our neighbors in need at the Mission show up with a need for hygiene items, we pay attention. You see, the study also shows what our practical experience affirms: without effective and ongoing personal hygiene, the possibility of suffering infections and infectious disease goes up substantially. Simply put, their health suffers without soap, shampoo, deodorant,  toothpaste, toothbrushes and the other commodities that figure into staying clean.

Homelessness and poverty often make staying clean a challenge. You can imagine sleeping outdoors, having to walk some distance to secure a shower, and then trying to launder your clothing (or find new) in an effort to keep rashes and sores to a minimum. Can you imagine how difficult it is to maintain the positive effects of that shower without soap and shampoo, much less laundry detergent? 

For many of our homeless and impoverished neighbors, it’s an everyday challenge that can actually be worse in Colorado winters than summers.

The increase in families and individuals stopping by to secure the basics of life has drained our shelves of health and hygiene items of late. We need the simple stuff—soap, shampoo, toothpaste, toothbrushes, feminine care products, diapers, deodorant—to help hundreds of families and individuals avoid skin and wound infections as well as communicable disease in the next few weeks. Can you help? Any size of any hygiene product is welcome.

A little soap (and it hygienic cousins) will work wonders today, just as it has for centuries before.

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[i] The Soap and Detergent Association, “Against Disease: The impact of hygiene and cleanliness on health.” November 2008. Accessed at http://www.againstdisease.com/documents/SDA_Against_Disease_final_cover_11808.pdf. Face it, you always knew Mom was right.

Artistic Vision at Street Level

The real function of an artist is to give fresh vision to their own generation. 

– Doris McCarthy

The smallest things sometimes cause the greatest stir. In the case of Brian’s photo of water reflecting a diving swallow, it was the subtlety of a small bird acting like a barnstorming pilot as it was framed by a Colorado Springs tunnel. Maybe more, it was Brian’s ability to describe the process he went through in noticing the bird in the first place and taking pictures in hope of catching the bird in flight. The swallow’s reflection, as it ends up, was a bonus.

And at this fall’s first Street Level show featuring art from the homeless and formerly homeless, it was the conversation starter that brought viewer after viewer to stand in front of Brian’s photo. “Find the Swallow and Its Reflection” became the thing to do that evening, in part because the swallow brought the photo to life—just as Brian had anticipated as he waited to take the just-right image of the just-right moment at few months ago.

But it didn’t stop there. Because Brian had spent time on the streets homeless and scrambling to survive, he had to find his own places of whimsy and comfort. There is humor in his shot of a Queen Anne wingback stuck somewhere in the middle of Fountain Creek. He has his own story about the security of sleeping within a few feet of active train tracks, and somehow his picture of a passing train makes sense in that light. Brian sees drainage ditches and abandoned buildings with intact glass through an artist’s eye seasoned in the unique crucible of homelessness.

It’s tough to explain without seeing the pictures, of course. The good news is that Brian’s work (and there’s more than there’s room here to describe) is on display for the entire month of December at Café 225 at 225 North Weber Street in downtown Colorado Springs. The Cafe is open from 7 am -5 pm Monday through Friday, and Sunday from 7 am – noon. You can stop by for coffee and browse the work yourself, or come to one of the Street Level Homeless Art Gallery events from 5 -7 pm on December 7^th, 14^th or 28^th and chat with Brian himself.

The Street Level events will also feature the work of other artists who are, or have been, homeless. There  will be a variety of projects on display ranging from jewelry to pen and ink to photography and more at Street Level. Some of the artists will be available at the December events, as well.

One more thing: the Street Level artists whose work is featured have all been helped by Springs Rescue Mission’s Resource Advocate Program, which connects our homeless neighbors with the help they need for medical care, housing, job hunting, and more. You can make donations to support RAP and the people it serves at Street Level events through the Independent Give! Campaign through December.

Please join us this month and enjoy the fresh artistic vision of these artists at Street Level!

Talking Turkey, the Gift that Keeps Giving

You make the walk down the supermarket aisle. The store-brand turkeys are loss leaders in this week’s flyer. You ponder purchasing an extra turkey at these bargain prices.

You’ve heard turkeys make really cost-effective gifts (okay, maybe this is the first time you’ve heard that). But to whom—and how do you gift wrap them?

Here’s the bottom line: your gift of one turkey can help one family in need through the holidays by providing an average 33 meals’ worth of protein to that family. It’s a gift that allows them to put a portion of their food budget toward something else – like medicine, utilities, health and hygiene items, needed clothing.

And you don’t need to gift wrap those turkeys. Just drop them by Springs Rescue Mission during business hours in the next week or so, or bring them sometime late Saturday morning November 10  to The Gobble Gobble Turkey Wobble at America the Beautiful Park. (If you want to, you can leave a modest cash donation. Between $5 and $10 can cover at least one turkey purchase, along with storage and distribution.)

We have a community goal with Care and Share Food Bank to raise 10,000 frozen turkeys through actual turkey donation combined with cash donations targeted for turkeys this week, November 10-16. But you can start bringing those turkeys now—like today—if you like.

Your turkey donation will help meet the goal to provide protein for 330,000 meals in the Pikes Peak Region and southern Colorado. It's an aggressive goal to meet a growing need among our neighbors, 1 in 6 of whom live in households at or under the poverty line right here, right now.

Turkeys: the gifts that keep on giving. Now you know.

Brother, sister, can you spare a turkey? Today?

Charity, Carnival and The Gobble Gobble Turkey Wobble

I thoroughly enjoyed my hometown school’s Band Carnival. We transformed the cafeteria, gymnasium, and outside yard of our high school into a smorgasbord of game booths and food tables. (I also remember pulling regular shifts as one of the “Dunk Tank” targets…hmmm…) The event helped the elementary, middle school and high school bands buy instruments and uniforms. It was quite something for a small town of 3,500 to finance an entire instrumental program for seven grade levels mostly from one event. It was a lot of fun, and it worked.

A far wiser man than I has suggested that the spirit of charity, at its heart, is the spirit of carnival. In other words, it can actually be fun to give toward meeting someone else’s need without expecting anything in return.

In earlier times, carnivals were held in part to provide a central gathering place (and event) that made it easier for people to bring help for those in need. Sometimes carnivals were “sponsored” by communities; other times by fraternal organizations within churches. As time passed, events have been used by schools, youth groups, civic organizations, and others to raise awareness and funds.

This year, in just a few days, Springs Rescue Mission joins with Care and Share Food Bank for the 2012 “10,000 Turkey Team” whose goal is to raise 10,000 turkeys through donations of frozen turkeys or the money to help buy them during the week of November 10-16. Ten thousand turkeys will provide enough protein to cover 330,000 meals for our neighbors in need in the Pikes Peak region and southern Colorado. It’s a challenging task, but not impossible.

And besides – we can have fun making it happen. We need thousands of people like you to join us for the kickoff event November 10 at America the Beautiful Park starting at high noon. The Gobble Gobble Turkey Wobble offers you the chance to not only provide a turkey or two, but to set one, two or three world records. (Please register now to be a part of those record-setting events at www.mysrm.org/wobble.)

You may not feel like you’re taking the problem of hunger seriously enough by having fun while you’re helping to provide protein for 10,000 or so hungry families, but remember the early church wisdom saying the Lord loves people who give out of cheer, joy, or even (in some translations) outright hilarity.

So be hilarious. Come to the Wobble dressed like a turkey. Dance the Twist for five minutes. Do the Hokey Pokey in a single line for another five minutes. Bring yourself and a friend or your family and a frozen turkey.

Let’s have some fun doing good through some cheerful charity. It works!

Perfect Storms, Tribes and Social Miracles

The common definition of a “perfect storm” began as “a phenomenon where conditions are just right to produce an event of catastrophic proportion.” I’ve also heard “perfect storm” used frequently and, I think, appropriately in describing the lives of so many we serve at the Mission. 

Rarely can we point to one single circumstance that drives a family or an individual into profound need or homelessness. It’s more a matter of conditions piling on top of each other in a way that produces catastrophe in someone’s life.

For example, when Warren lost his wife to cancer some years ago, he turned inward and medicated his grief with alcohol. He ended up alienating his married children and grandchildren. He began showing up at work hung over and depressed, which led to him losing that job. Unable to find another job in a shrinking economy while he was on unemployment, he ended up homeless, alone, hungry and addicted.  Grief, alcoholism, broken relationships, an economy on the fritz and fading chances for employment. Smells like a storm, doesn’t it?

Jerry’s cardiologist is convinced that the stress of being laid off led directly to Jerry’s cardiac collapse a few months later. Jerry kept looking for work while he was recovering. He went into interviews looking well-dressed, but really haggard. Meanwhile his nest egg shrunk and then disappeared. His deteriorated health fed his deteriorating opportunity to work which further deteriorated his economic stability-- or should that be in another order? Maybe it’s all of the above, together, firing at random.

So what do you do when your neighbor is caught in storms like those? Convene the next meeting of experts and make the homeless and hungry the main topic? Write a politician and tell her to take care of the problem? Hope some rich family foundation or Donald Trump-type coughs up a huge check?

What if you could be part of a social miracle? 

In his book Lost Icons (T&T Clark 2000), Rowan Williams (yep, that one -- the Archbishop of Canterbury) comments on what historian John Bossy calls “the social miracle” of the medieval community and church -- charity resulting from “the extraordinary process by which sectional loyalties were from time to time interrupted and overcome by a sense of integration, of belonging to an entire social body extending far beyond one’s choice or one’s affiliations of interest and ‘natural’ loyalty” (Williams, p.54).  In other words, people made the choice to move beyond the tribalism of the Dark Ages into a greater community to benefit those in need. Bossy counts that as nothing short of a miracle. 

He’s probably right. Think about the tribes, each with their own biases, mores and folkways, in our modern culture. Tribes spring up over economic status. Tribes thrive on divisive politics. Tribes nurture differences of social position. Tribes watch with fear should someone invade a comfort zone within their territory. Asking tribes to move beyond their perceived boundaries of relation is tantamount to social heresy. If one’s boundaries don’t include those who have slipped into a different tribe of people struggling with alcoholism or poverty, it can be difficult to even see the need to offer a hand up to others.

But that hand up is necessary for those neighbors (there’s a community term), many of whom may never share our tastes in candidates, football teams, restaurants or radio stations, who find themselves in perfect storms.  Our neighbors need the extraordinary process that interrupts sectional loyalties and goes way past “natural” loyalties. They need someone, in fact a community of “someones,” to break tribal boundaries and offer a hand up out of the chaos of their perfect storms.

As the old Bruce Cockburn song says, they’re waiting for a miracle: the miracle that happens when our attention is fixed, even for a moment, on the fact that because we share the planet and our days with them, the hungry and homeless are somehow miraculously and wonderfully a part of each of us.

They need responses beyond tribes, elections, and platitudes. Our neighbors need the miracle and true synergy of community response, starting with the life jackets that will help them navigate their perfect storms -- food, clothing, education, options, housing, basic care.

Count this your invitation to be part of a social miracle right where you are.

Socks, Part Two: Preventing Frostbite and Its Fallout

My good friend Sarah Stacy, who manages the Mission’s Resource Advocate Program (RAP) for the chronically homeless, is genuinely excited about the possibilities of more socks for the neighbors we serve. She states her case far better than I could ever hope to rewrite it:

“The homeless are at great risk of frostbite on their feet for a number of reasons, one of which is damp socks or dirty socks that lose their ‘fluff’ (those air pockets between the fibers that help our feet stay warm) and ability to protect the skin. 

“Frostbite can take up to two years of extensive medical treatment to get taken care of, including inpatient care, managed pain control (which is risky for those with addictive personalities) and visits to wound clinics several times a week during the healing process.  It’s ugly as the tissue that was frozen falls off.  Medical personnel usually have to wait until the toes ‘self-amputate’ to preserve as much of the foot as possible in the healing process. 

“Treatment is painful and VERY EXPENSIVE to the community. Yet adequate footwear, including socks, could prevent the problem. 

“One of the yuckiest parts of caring for the homeless is asking to see their feet in the cold to help prevent these problems.  We have to educate, educate, educate our homeless to take care of their feet, and providing clean warm socks is a major way to help.”

So one more time for those of you in the Pikes Peak Region: You can find sock drop boxes around town in Colorado Springs. There are boxes located at TCF Bank (Powers & Constitution), Remington College, Nazarene Bible College, Gold’s Gym Briargate, The Coffee Exchange, Hollywood Theater (where Timothy Green will debut on August 15) & Community Bible Study.

Your gift of just one pair of socks could save someone a lot of pain, and the community thousands of dollars. (Imagine what a package of six pairs might do…)