Heart to Heart Blog
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With Winter fast approaching, it has been weighing heavy on my heart just how many unsheltered individuals in Cecil County, Maryland, are without provisions for shelter and food! Not to mention, 100's more in New Castle County, DE. The needs are many and we realize the lack of funding plays a huge part. IN Cecil County alone, the inability of agencies to work together cohesively and collaboratively is appalling. Example: Unsheltered individuals go without access to meals from Friday's at noon to Monday mornings! And, M-F noon they can receive a meal, IF they can navigate their way to the location providing the meal. Delivering a box of donuts, bags of chips, or a case of canned goods, is only putting a bandaid on the problem - not only unhealthy, but many do not have can openers, or provisions to cook within the encampment communities. Through our partnerships with High Roads Schools, Bethel Church, and other Cecil County resources, we are actively trying to develop a solutions-based, sustainable approach to address the needs of the unsheltered. These individuals are not "toss aways", and do not deserve to freeze or starve to death. Without programs, there are no successful outcomes - many want to work, but lack the resources necessary to obtain or sustain employment. Heartlight recently was able to obtain employment for 2 individuals living on the streets - both are working 40 hours a week, and consistently going to work while continuing to live unsheltered (primarily due to lack of available housing)! Doesn't it just make sense an individual who is working moves to the top of the list for sheltering/housing? Not the case - individuals who choose not to work, are not engaged in any type of outcome based program, are provided with shelter and 3 meals a day, 7 days a week, and have no motivation or programmatic criteria to "move on"! It's time for a CHANGE! Sheltering facilities need programs and criteria in place to move the unsheltered back into being productive members of their communities! Agencies need to be held accountable for outcomes and not just number crunching and providing a "revolving door" of increasing learned dependencies. It appears "nice" for 3 or 4 agencies to provide meals on Tuesdays, however, they can't change their schedules to make sure all the days of the week are covered, as "well, they know we are always here on Tuesdays", "they are used to our consistency" - SO WHAT!?! Let one agency be consistent and always be there for them on a particular day of the week, but spread it out to cover an entire week, and decrease the duplication of provision. IF you are reading this, reach out to us, and let's make our tax dollars make a difference - not waste them on additional duplication of services and lack of accountability, repetitive visits to the ER and jails, and meet these individuals as "people first" with a research and solution-based approach. The needs are great and the workers who are truly passionate about the work and dedicated to seeking solutions are few!
“Tragedy into Triumph…” Receiving that specific text from one of my staff about a news interview they had just seen where a business owner was looking to donate shoes to the community. This had me excited. I was absolutely intrigued… needed to locate the news feed, and proceeded to do just that. A fellow sister in Christ, and local business owner Sharon Leaks-Morgan of S&B Organic Cleaning Services in Philadelphia, PA, was the one being interviewed. She had been contacted to clean out 6 different stores (after the looting) in Philadelphia, and was able to remove and retain the remaining contents and to give back to her community. What the enemy meant for evil, God turns into good! The point of that interview was to reach any Charitable Foundation helping those in the homeless community, and to contact her so that she could make a difference to those in need. I was lucky enough to reach her and with those shoes and even socks our organization will be able to touch almost 50 homeless in need!! Now that I reflect on that day and remember how deep in prayer I was, and how connected to God I was in my conversation with HIM. HE knew exactly what he felt my next steps should be. Low and behold HE does what HE always does… HE unfolded HIS plan and revealed the need to call Sharon. What a wonderful start of a long-lasting relationship there will now be with Sharon, her S&B business and our Heartlight Foundation. What a blessing to cover the feet of those who have no shoes! #untotheleastofthese #Godlovesthehomeless #homelessneedshoesandsocks
I've been pondering so many things in recent weeks as to what the "new normal" is going to look like for students with disabilities in transition from school to work, or school to post-secondary education. I've been hearing so many varying stories across the country as to how the school systems are planning, or not (?), how to meet IEP goals, how to provide work-based assessments in the community, how to provide an inclusive educational experience in the least restrictive environment via Zoom, Skype, or other means of online education. To say the least, I, we at the Heartlight Foundation are concerned, and ramping up transition services to meet the needs of these students and their families as we move forward into whatever this "new normal" is actually going to look like. As an organization, we are also in discussion about the employment opportunities for individuals with disabilities, especially out Veterans with service-related disabilities. Personally, I think the future may be looking a lot brighter for them. The "new normal" may bring greater opportunities, even in consideration of the current rate of unemployment. More on that in an upcoming post. I will close this post in sharing that serving the homeless, who are being seriously neglected through this COVID 19 pandemic (more on that later), and meeting the urgent needs of crisis shelters is keeping our organization hopping and happy! The crisis shelters are also being neglected, yet their numbers are up both locally and nationally, with the increase of domestic violence occurring through "stay at home" orders. There is no greater blessing than to serve others, and no greater reward than seeing the tears and smiles of appreciation as we meet the needs of those who have little to nothing. SHOUT OUT and big thank you to Same Kind Foundation ( https://www.samekindofdifferentasmefoundation.org ), for their generous donation and coming along side of us in support of meeting the current crisis needs of the homeless in 3 States!
