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A Huge Thank You

My friend John works for NC State’s IT Department. For their holiday project, they decided to make Love Wins Ministries one of the objects of their giving… and they came through, big time.

We received:

  • 23 pairs of socks
  • 53 tubes of toothpaste
  • 57 toothbrushes
  • 64 bars of soap or body wash bottles
  • 18 sticks of deodorants
  • 50 packages of hand warmers
  • 52 shampoo bottles
  • 36 bottles of lotion
  • 18 bottles of conditioner
  • 44 razors
  • 5 bottles of mouthwash
  • 7 bottles of liquid hand sanitizer
  • 4 tubes of lip balm
  • 5 cotton ball packets
  • 5 cotton swab packets
  • 4 25-packs of baby wipes
  • 3-pack of Kleenex tissues
  • 30 antibacterial moist towelettes
  • 40-pack of Tampons
  • 303 quart size plastic bags
  • 20 quart size freezer bags
  • 100 black trash bags
  • 1 Net10 Phone
  • 3 backpacks
  • Gift certificates/cards ($150)
    • $55 McDonald’s (30 $1-certificates, 5 $5-cards)
    • $45 CVS (4 $5-cards and 1 $25-card)
    • $20 Kroger (2 $10-cards)
    • $30 Food Lion (3 $10-cards)
  • A partridge in a pear tree (Not really, but it sounded good.)

(If you are wondering why these things, they came from this list and this list. These are things we always need.)

We are blessed beyond measure. Thank you so very much. You have helped make things better for a lot of people this winter.

If you are on twitter and wanted to thank them directly, they have a twitter account @ncsu_oit …

The rest of the story - Not an hour after I picked all the supplies up from John, I was able to use the CVS gift cards to help Jenifer get her antibiotics prescription filled.

She had a sever infection from a bad tooth. She pulled the tooth herself, but it got infected. The emergency room gave her a prescription for penicillin, but she didn’t have the $17 to get it filled. Thanks to the CVS gift cards our new friends at @ncsu_oit had just given us, she got the prescription filled and the swelling has gone down.

She cried when she thanked me for filling her prescription, but it was only possible because of their gift. I just got to be the guy in the middle.

Posted 23 December 2009 † Hugh Hollowell § News ‡ Comments (0) ° Tagged: , ,

Working on the site

We will experience some downtime this afternoon as we work on the site.

Thanks for understanding, and we hope to have it back up soon.

Posted 19 December 2009 † Hugh Hollowell § admin ‡ Comments (0) °

Becoming Homeless is a Process

eviction-originalImagine, for a moment, that you have a fairly normal life. You have a job, an apartment that is just a bit too expensive, you have some credit cards you really ought to pay off and a car payment, along with the insurance, tags and so on that come with it and, of course, no real savings.

And then you lose your job. It was outsourced, or your company filed bankruptcy, or your department got shuttered. Whatever. You are out of work.  And on your way to becoming quickly out of money.  Because you recently moved here for that job, you don’t have any local friends that would let you live in the spare bedroom until things turn around. You have family back home, 800 miles away, but they are struggling too. There is no real money to send you – they are trying their best to just survive. So you keep putting in applications, buy cheaper and cheaper food, start researching the food pantries and the soup kitchens. And at night, you cry.

They repossess the car first, because you chose to pay the rent instead of the car note. Luckily you live near a bus line - not that you have ever ridden the bus before, but you are learning to do lots of things you never did before. The college degree on your wall in the bedroom mocks you when you wake up in the morning to face yet another round of rejections from people who still have jobs.

By now, you have quit being choosy – you are applying for jobs at fast food joints and retail stores. Collection agencies are calling your phone nearly nonstop because you quit paying the bills to hold on to the little cash you have left. Yesterday you tried to charge the groceries and your last credit card was declined. You come home to find the a note on your door, telling you to be in court in seven days. You are being evicted.

You’re an educated, intelligent, normal person. You’re not an alcoholic or drug addict. You’re not a bad person. But you are 27 years old and homeless.

I have personally seen this very scenario at least 5 times in the last three months. People who all say the exact same thing to me - “I am not like this! This is not me!”

This is how homelessness happens. It is not one bad decision you made – it is a process.

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It is worth noting that there are at least five places (I see nine)  in the scenario above where the church could have played a role in keeping this from happening. Can you find them?

Photo Credit: tombothetominator

Posted 16 December 2009 † Hugh Hollowell § Homeless ‡ Comments (7) ° Tagged: , , ,

Heads Up

I know I seem like I have slacked off, but this is a busy time of year for those of us who help churches love folks who live outside. Before Thanksgiving, I spoke 7 times in 10 days - I was running around like the proverbial chicken with my head cut off.

We are spending some behind the scenes time working on the website - our goal is to make it easier for you to interact with it - easier to volunteer, easier to donate, easier to figure out what we are all about.  Hopefully that will happen right around Christmas time.

Meanwhile, keep praying for us, and check out this post my friend and volunteer par-excellence Chad put on his personal blog, about rethinking giftgiving for Christmas.

Thank you for loving and supporting us, and I hope to get back to regular programming here quite soon.

Posted 15 December 2009 † Hugh Hollowell § admin ‡ Comments (0) ° Tagged:

A Strange Exchange

A guest post by Chad, reposted from infiniteexchange

This past Sunday, Suzanne and I visited our friends who gather at Moore Square. It was like most days, quite depressing to see so many people out on the streets. It is especially to sad to drive down in my nice warm truck and then have only five pairs of boots to give out each month. So many people are in need of shoes to keep their feet warm.

There was a bit of hope in an exchange this week.

I had delivered a pair of boots to Jonathan, who was a size 8.5. Right as I was given them to him, another man approached with shoes that were literally falling apart. I quickly asked Jonathan if the other man could have his old shoes. He quickly and without hesitation said, “Yes.” It was great to see the needs of two men met that day in a single moment.

I am always encouraged by the love that the people we share with at Moore Square show each other. Yes, like any community there are times that they fight and bicker, but there is so much love there. He gladly gave his old shoes away, I just don’t think that happens every day where I live in Suburbia. Maybe it doesn’t happen because we don’t need “shoes”, but I would rather it happens because we are afraid to admit our shortcomings to each other.

If you would like to donate to help with warm shoes for men and women of the Raleigh area, please contact me at chadkmiller @ gmail.com or donate to Love Wins here.

Posted 05 December 2009 † Chad Miller § ministry ‡ Comments (1) ° Tagged: , ,

Prayer, Hope and Babies

Last night, I held a snugly newborn little girl. She weighed almost seven pounds and was full of that new baby smell. (I always love the smell of their scalp). I hung out in the hospital room with the parents, talking about the hospital food, the new crib their friends at church had given them and the new job the father had just gotten. We gathered around and I prayed over the baby and gave her a blessing. I love pastoral visits like these.

Except I know the mother, and this is the fifth baby she has had, and the state got all the previous ones. And the baby looks healthy enough, even though I know the mom had a 2 pack a day habit while she was pregnant. And the dad looked proud enough of his new job, but I know that if he keeps this job for three months, it will be a record for him. They are not exactly prize-winning in the potential parents category.

But maybe this time is different. This job seems more stable than previous ones. This time they have an apartment with a lease and they are actually participating in a church, where folks are taking an interest in them and supporting them. And some of the older ladies in the mother’s life are helping her out, showing her how to burp the baby and so on. In other words, they have a community now, albeit somewhat tenuous.

Last night when I prayed for baby McCalla, I asked God to watch over her and protect her, for her to always make good choices and to be strong. I also prayed that the dad would keep the job, that the mom would be a good mom and that the love of this baby would help them both be more responsible parents and people. It is pretty much up to them, though. You can’t force people to care, as much as I wish you could.

I know that their becoming good parents (even good people) is not likely… but yet I pray for it, just the same. And odds are that baby McCalla is already done at two days old - statistically, she will probably be pregnant by age 15 - if she even makes it to age 15. So I know that hoping she will grow up to be strong, sober and good is probably not the way to bet. But it is the way to pray.

Posted 07 October 2009 † Hugh Hollowell § Popular § Prayer ‡ Comments (0) ° Tagged: ,

The Assault on Karen

Rick and Karen* have been in town about two months. They came from New Jersey, drawn here by the promise of work that did not materialize after they put all their stuff in storage and rode the bus down. Six months ago, he was a hard working construction worker and she was a housewife. Now, they are just two more homeless folks, trying to get out.

After the first month on the street, they lost the stuff in storage back home because they could not pay the bill anymore. On the bus ride down, their luggage was stolen, along with their Identification - making work impossible to get in our post 9/11 world. Shortly after getting his ID straightened out, he was working a temporary job and hurt his leg, putting him on crutches (and unable to work) for the next two weeks.  My grandfather would say they were snakebit and my Social Worker friends would say they have “Multiple Conflicting Issues”, but either way, they just can’t get a break.

Some folks adjust to homelessness better than others. She is not adjusting well. She spends most of her nights in the shelter, thank God, but seperated from her husband, who sometimes, but not always, gets into the men’s shelter. Apparently it never occured to the powers that be that a childless married couple could ever be homeless, or, if you are cynical, you have to assume the powers might have thought about such an incident but they just do not care or value keeping such a family together.

Monday was my day off. I had no business being downtown at all, but I was looking for a friend of mine who had offered to help me move into the new place when I saw her, surrounded by police officers, crying and shaking. Her husband, Rick, was across the street, talking to another police officer. I walk over to investigate. The officer does not like this, but it is times like this that those pastor credentials come in handy.

Rick had went to fill out job applications. Normally they travel together, but since they only had the one bus pass she stayed at the Cat Bus station downtown. Surrounded by people, she felt safe while he went and tried to find work.

While Rick was gone, a guy sat next to Karen, in broad daylight, and assaulted her, groping her and putting his hand under her shirt. She screamed and he was stopped from running by some folks who came to her aid. The police were called and Rick arrived. She was hysterical. After the police arrested the guy and left, we talked for over an hour - trying to do a passable example of trauma counseling while surrounded by well wishing, but testosterone filled, men, all of whom were intent on exacting revenge for her honor. You don’t have to be Sigmund Freud to know getting her out of there would have been a good plan. I called several of my female friends, hoping to find one who would take her to the gym, so she could shower and change there, and maybe have conversation with someone who is not the same sex as her agressor, but all my friends were in voice-mail mode, so we had to make do with convincing the shelter to allow her to come inside two hours early, so she could shower and change clothes. Unfortunantly, this also cut her off from her husband, who is not allowed inside the shelter.

Being out here is so dark at times. And if I did not believe that God still reigns and that one day Karen’s suffering would be redemed and made right, I have no idea how I would go on. And on days when I just cannot believe it any more, I still have at least the hope that it’s true. According to the author of Hebrews, being sure of what we hope for is the definition of faith. So, in faith, I go on.

Lord, I believe. Please help my unbelief.

*As always, names are changed for privacy purposes.

Posted 06 October 2009 † Hugh Hollowell § Homeless § Popular ‡ Comments (3) ° Tagged: , ,

Quick Note

Just a quick note that I am swamped this week and next - so there will probably not be any blog updates from me until the 1st of October or so. I may try to coerce some of my co-conspirators to write more so you do not feel completely ignored.

Thank you for all your love and support. Go love somebody!

Posted 14 September 2009 † Hugh Hollowell § admin ‡ Comments (0) °

The Rich Get Richer…

Again and again, we see poverty is about lack of choice.

A new study reveales that the employees that make the least amount of money are often cheated even out of that.

The study found that 26 percent of the workers had been paid less than the minimum wage the week before being surveyed and that one in seven had worked off the clock the previous week. In addition, 76 percent of those who had worked overtime the week before were not paid their proper overtime, the researchers found.

It is apparently not enough that you get a job - then you have to watch the people who are paying you. Of course, the thing is, these people are people who need the job the most, and are thus least likely to raise too much stink with their boss, who might just decide he needs someone who will complain less. n other words, they have no choice but to accept being cheated.

Posted 04 September 2009 † Hugh Hollowell § Justice ‡ Comments (1) ° Tagged: , ,

Chill in the Air

The wind whipped through my sweater this morning on my scooter. Lately, I have been sleeping with the windows open. These are harbingers of Autumn, a time of beautiful leaves and crisp weather, of bobbing for apples, trick or treating and the anticipation of Thanksgiving break…

Unless you live outside. If you live outside, it means finding another blanket or two, so you can sleep warmly at night. It means wearing three pair of pants and four coats. It means looking for a warm place to sit and wishing you could store the warmth, somehow, for later, when you will be in your cat-hole, shivering, feeling the cold from the concrete soak through the 5 blankets and into your bones.

This will be my third winter among the very poor of Raleigh, including those who live outside. Going home to my warm house never gets any easier.

Posted 02 September 2009 † Hugh Hollowell § Homeless ‡ Comments (1) °