All Tips 3 - Project Dignity

Doing the Right Thing–Even When it’s Hard

Working with children is one of the most rewarding activities ever. Working with homeless children has extra rewards because of the endless possibilities to make a difference in a little one’s life.

Children living in motels face some very gruesome situations every day. They see things the majority of us may never encounter even once in our entire lifetimes. Don’t let this be an excuse for you to pity the children you work with. They need your compassion always—your pity never. Don’t even try to give them your understanding because you can’t, unless you grew up in a motel yourself.

Pity causes you to treat a child differently. It cripples your ability to be someone who can make a lasting difference to the child if all you can see in front of you is “damaged goods”. You will find yourself wanting to “give them a break” and let inappropriate behavior such as bad language, name calling or greediness slide.

Having Fun–Staying out of Danger

You and your volunteers will probably have some wonderful ideas on fun activities to do with the children you meet in the motels. It can start out as simply as you and a volunteer just going to the motel (after you ask the owner or manager’s permission to be there) one afternoon to pass out peanut butter & jelly sandwiches. You may bring a few books for the children to keep. You may even bring games and sit down to play with the children.

All of these things are definitely simple and very much appreciated by the children. As you return again and again you will begin to build relationships with the children and possibly their parents. Your imagination will start to kick in because you want very badly to bring experiences to the children you know they’ve never had. You care about them and you want their lives to be better.

No matter what activity you plan, never, ever forget that your staging area is a motel parking lot, and parking lots have what? Cars. Lots of them, not necessarily parked. You will encounter moving, speeding cars for various reasons, ranging from the innocent fact the residents are trying to get to their room, all the way to someone who is high and out of control.

Food from Unknown Sources–CAUTION!!!

Most people want to feed the homeless out of the true kindness of their hearts. They would never do anything to hurt someone else. You will probably start by taking food off your own shelves and from your own refrigerator. Maybe some of your friends will offer food and, since they’re friends you’ll probably take it and be glad to get it. Your volunteers may have connections with bakeries, delis, grocery stores, etc. The thought of taking something delicious, filling and wonderful to your homeless friends can cloud your judgment.

When you reach the point where you can shop at a food bank they will probably require you to take a “Safe Food Handling” class. Believe me, after you attend this class your days of taking food from unknown sources will be over if you have any common sense at all. Even if your compassion gene doesn’t kick in, because you don’t want anyone getting sick on your watch, your reluctance to get sued surely will.

Be Flexible–Be Prepared

Being flexible and prepared is probably the best advice you’ll ever give yourself when you serve the homeless. It applies to all areas of your ministry, but none more so than the first service you will probably ever offer—food distribution.

You do it because you have a heart and can’t stand the thought of people going hungry. Nothing is more heart breaking than having to stop the good effort you started, so don’t take anything for granted. Don’t assume that solid food sources will remain consistent and solid. The homeless clients you serve got that way because of economic changes. Those changes can affect you too.

Keep it Simple

One of the mistakes often made when working with children is the assumption that you have to do something stupendous, marvelous or outrageous to please them. Clowns, magic acts and jolly jumpers are great, but they’re expensive and time consuming to pull off. These things may indeed please the children, but you can tone it down quite a bit and still do something they will appreciate and remember for longer than you expect. Remember, the children you’re serving aren’t jaded, bored and over stimulated with electronic gadgets, toys and weekly outings. Pretty much everything is new to them.

For example, yesterday we had a P B & J bar for the children (and the adults too, of course). Naturally we brought peanut butter, jelly and bread, but what we added is what made the children’s eyes grow wide. This is where you imagination comes in. You can add quite a few “goodies” without breaking the budget.

We set up containers with chocolate chips, white chocolate chips, marshmallows and bacon. Yes, bacon. It’s fantastic with peanut butter. Don’t knock it ‘til you’ve tried it! We also had Nutella (a chocolate-hazelnut spread that generations of Italian children have been raised on) and honey. The children were allowed to have absolutely any combination they wanted. If you ever doubt whether or not they have imaginations, you will be sure after this.

When is it Really an Emergency?

When is it Really an Emergency?

Some days you get no phone calls. Some days they pile up quicker than you can handle them. That’s when you have to “triage”—decide which call gets handled now and which ones can wait for a bit. Face it, they are all emergencies. No one ever calls just to say hello. Someone’s on the verge of eviction because they can’t pay the rent, someone’s car just broke down, someone needs food, someone needs to get to the doctor. The key word is need. Everyone needs something and they pretty much need it right now.

Depending on the size of your staff and/or volunteer base a day with a lot of phone calls can either go smoothly or cause you to spin in circles if you’re not careful. If it’s just you handling the emergencies you need to take a deep breath, make your best decision and get on to the next one.

Last week there was a day with multiple phone calls and emails, all with serious requests, involving rent, food, transportation and a sick child. Guess which one got handled first? Right, the one involving the sick child. We received an urgent call from one of the motel residents asking for help for another family whose baby was very sick. (Motels are mini microcosms, communities unto themselves. The residents take care of each other).

One resident helped get the baby and mother to the emergency room. Another helped get them home at 2 am when the buses were no longer running. Unfortunately, they ran up against a problem they couldn’t solve. They all had heart. What they didn’t have was money. The emergency room saw the baby and diagnosed her with a bad case of the flu. Then she was released to go home, with a 103 degree temperature and a prescription. When the mother went to the 24 hour pharmacy to fill the prescription, she found out there was a foul-up with her Medi-Cal coverage. The prescription cost $150 and she didn’t have the money. Neither did anyone else. She had to take the baby home without the prescription.

SERVING MORE, OR SERVING WELL—WHERE DO YOU STAND?

If you’re attended many meetings with nonprofit consultants, the phrase you get used to hearing is, “If you’re not growing, you’re not succeeding”. At the risk of being rude, may I say, “Baloney!” Beware of talking heads who want to give you their pearls of wisdom. Unless you know that the person giving the sage advice has and is running their own nonprofit and getting their own hands dirty, don’t be too quick to take their words as gospel truth.

There are too many “consultants” who want to apply business management principals to the nonprofit world. Guess what? It doesn’t work. Just as there are hundreds of specialties a new doctor can opt to become an expert in, there are hundreds if not thousands of opportunities in the world of service and they don’t lend themselves to being boxed in by cookie cutter wisdom.

Serving more just means you’re serving more. It doesn’t mean you’re doing it well. There are several fast food burger chains that can put the number of burgers they’ve served in the billions. So what? Does that make it a better burger? Probably not. Just as assembly line cooking doesn’t lend itself to excellence, neither does assembly line serving of clients.

Doing the Right Thing–Even When it’s Hard

Having Fun–Staying out of Danger

Food from Unknown Sources–CAUTION!!!

Be Flexible–Be Prepared

Keep it Simple

When is it Really an Emergency?

SERVING MORE, OR SERVING WELL—WHERE DO YOU STAND?

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