Over the last few days, I have had a rare and unique opportunity to see democracy in its purest form at work. I have watched an ill considered, and ultimately ill fated, decision get redrawn in the face of an unprecedented outpouring of support for the side of justice and righteousness. I believe the cause is won, for today, at least, and the people have prevailed. But it was too close, and a heart-rending sign of the dog-eat-dog times in which we live.
The action was set in a little burg by the name of Manhattan, Kansas, a lovely rural city in central Kansas which is the home of Kansas State University, my son's alma mater. Or it will be, if he can ever bring himself to graduate. Personally, I stopped holding my breath on that one when I realized I was beginning to look like Violet Beauregarde. (Roald Dahl. Library time. Seriously. Lay the computer down and step away from the keyboard. Wikipedia does NOT know all.)
Everyone believes their university or college is the best. It's human of us to believe that the college selection which we made so thoughtlessly at 17 or 18 was the best, nay, the only, decision we could possibly have made. But in the case of KSU, I will share with you that I am proud to be a KSU parent, and I feel that the money I have shoveled in that direction for the past five years is money very well spent.
But over the last few days, I have been disheartened, disturbed, disconcerted, disbelieving, and finally, relieved, by the threatened loss of funding to the KSU marching band, and by extension, the entire music, program. The band, with currently the lowest funded budget in the Big XII, has historically been paid for with funds by the student activities fees. These fees are generated at tuition time, and are set aside to fund the various activities around campus which are for the benefit of the students at the university. Whether or not this is the right way to fund the university marching band is a point for another discussion. They have been funded this way for many years, and that is how KSU had handled it, so that is what the band was forced to work with.
And, in my opinion, there is plenty of justification for the idea that the students should help to pay for the marching band's funding. They are the face of KSU in our area, and frequently are the featured activity in recruitment videos and brochures and on the school calendar and other promotional items. In addition, not only do they pump up the crowds at the football and basketball home games, providing school spirit and sometimes the largest part of the fan base as well, they also draw the national camera on KSU by their antics and performance when the action on the field or the court is temporarily halted.
Finally, and in my opinion, most importantly, the KSU music department hosts a variety of marching festivals, band and strings clinics, orchestras and wind ensembles from around the state of Kansas every year. These events are not only valuable to the students who come and learn from our advanced college performers, but are an enormous recruitment boon to the university itself.
Tens of thousands of students have selected KSU over the years because they attended a music event in high school or even middle school, and found the environs of the small town university to be irresistible. No other department on campus makes this kind of large scale opportunity available to middle and high school students around the state, and the importance of these events to the KSU community simply cannot be quantified.
Last Tuesday night, the student run senate committee in charge of the allocation of student fees, paid by every student who attends KSU, including the students in the KSUMB and the music department as a whole, and which amount to millions of dollars of funding per year, made the decision, 15-0, to eliminate band funding from their budget over the next two years. (They keep referring to it as three years, but the reality is they were making a small cut for next year, cutting it in half for the year after, and then, nothing. To me, that's two years, and far too short of a time to come up with reasonable alternatives to save the program.)
Adam called me, naturally very distressed about the situation. While we were on the phone over the succeeding hours, we watched a grass-roots democratic movement be born.
It was a fascinating, frustrating, and ultimately gratifying effort on the part of the passionate band students, who not only lost their funding, but lost it in a slap in the face way which dismissed their value to the university itself. They were told they weren't important enough to merit the funding, that the band should throw a fundraiser to get it's money and support itself, that KSU students don't benefit from the KSU Marching Band, and that they were on their own.
Major university marching bands cannot hold a bake sale to fund their programs. They have some limited fundraisers, of course, but like other students, they cannot devote their time to fundraising full time. They are students, in one of the most costly and time consuming programs on campus, and by and large, like most of the students at KSU, come from lower middle class income families who cannot afford to support the band on their own. In addition, they must keep up with their academic rigors elsewhere, as well, to maintain their GPA and keep their outside scholarships and majors on track. Most of them work, in addition to their school and band commitments, leaving time a precious, and slim, commodity.
The marching band is the face and the spirit of every university on game day when the players are not on the field or the court, providing entertainment and enthusiasm to keep the crowd and the team spirits high. Which, especially lately, is a rather large job at KSU, I would add.
One of the more amusing anecdotes I have heard during this conflagration has been about the previous, and much loved KSU, football coach, Bill Snyder. Upon his arrival in Manhattan, he evidently felt the band was too noisy, perhaps a distraction to the crowd. He insisted they be moved from the center of the student section to the end zone, to get them out of the way.
At the next game, he realized that the crowd was not in the game, there was little cheering or enthusiasm being displayed, and the band, although they gamely played on, were not able to inspire and incite the expected school spirit for which they are so well known. I imagine it is obvious where they have been proudly located since that day.
It was a strong indication of just how important that marching band is to the overall event. He realized immediately that you don't mess with success, and restored them to their rightful place in the crowd. Where, I might add, you will find them each and every game, regardless of whether the team does well or poorly, and no matter if the student section is full or empty.
There are many unrecognized expenses associated with their role. The uniforms are expensive and in constant need of repair. They are there before the football team finishes their steak dinner and even gets to the stadium, and they are still there when everyone else has gone home to party and celebrate or commiserate. There are instruments that must be purchased, which give the marching band their full range, but which also enable students throughout the music department to experience instrumentation to which they would otherwise never have exposure, and which are as vital to their education as a Bunsen burner is to the chemist.
The music program at KSU has drawn in thousands of future teachers over the years, and they must be exposed to a full variety of instrumentation in order to go out and teach kids not only in Kansas, but throughout the country. The KSU music education program is one of the fastest growing programs in the U.S., and is rapidly gaining a reputation for national excellence, something of which the student run senate was apparently either unaware, or about which they simply did not care.
The KSUMB travels to one away game every two years, the game at the University of Kansas, their in-state rival, for which they pay their own way. When they travel else wise, for example, the symphony band tours they take each year, they pay their own way, either through fundraising or in cash straight out of their family's pockets. They are representing the university every bit as much as the football or basketball teams as they travel around the world, but they must do it on their own and their family's dime, not for the money, or even the glory, but to bring the arts to people around the world who otherwise would never have the opportunity to see a symphony or marching band in person and have that experience.
The band festivals and clinics and other events held throughout the year aren't free, either. The cost to bring high school students into the university is high, but the exposure for KSU is invaluable, and the resulting student tuition which is being paid out by students who make their college decision at those events cannot be bought for any price.
In response to this shocking public de-funding of their program, the marching band students, all 380 of them, were immediately galvanized into action. They began a facebook group, and it is now, on Saturday morning, over 8600 members and still growing. They have exhorted their family and friends and other students and alumni to help save the band, and they have contacted everyone and anyone who they believe will help their cause. There is an online petition they are hoping will ultimately reach 15,000 signatures, and they are also attending student senate meetings and the committee hearings to present their case, and their cause.
The result, within a tumultuous 48 hours, was that the KSU administration, athletic director, band director, head of the music department, and the head of alumni relations, not to mention the Dean of Students who is, at this moment, at the height of his recruiting season, (and you thought YOU had a bad week,) called a meeting with the student senate leaders to hammer out a new funding agreement that will take the band into the future, hopefully with more secure funding that will not be at the mercy of a student group that doesn't understand the value of their marching band to the university at large.
The administration was cyber assaulted with thousands of calls and e-mails from unhappy alumni, parents, and potential students, as well as their current students, which made the matter one of essential urgency. The alumni, in particular, made clear it was too important to take the chance on a student run group that doesn't have it's eye on the main ball. The marching band, and the music program at large, which has been the least funded band in the Big XII, (the nearest funded band has more than twice the amount of funding per year, in fact, and does less with it in terms of educational outreach,) will now be funded by a combination of sources which will ensure that this will never again be an issue to distract from the KSU image in the public eye.
I was fascinated to watch the facebook group develop and take shape, to read the hundreds and hundreds of comments from students, parents, and alums alike, and to see how the marching band used this technology to make their case, and to win the day. It was a true sign of how very, very different the world is now from when I was building Heath-kit computers back in my college days.
Back then, the cost of long distance, and the cost of postage to spread the word, would have been almost more than an already underfunded student organization could have overcome. But today, with the internet, unlimited long distance, facebook, and, I think, the love of students for the university they once attended, (and the support of the alums was absolutely invaluable, I believe, perhaps even the crucial element, in fact,) getting 8500 people in a group is, while still quite an achievement, a much less complicated process than it would have been 25 years ago.
I was most gratified, I think, by the number of student athletes who recognized the value of the band support at their events, and who have stepped up to say that the band must march on. It is rare that the athletes are given the opportunity to come to the aid of the students who are integral, yet often seen as peripheral, to their contests of skill and strength.
But there is a larger, and I believe, even more fundamental point at issue here, which is something that I sincerely hope will not be overlooked amidst the celebrations and the planning and the jubilation over the saving of the KSUMB. I think no one should miss the point that when funding cuts are made, it is always, every time, the arts which suffer first.
Kansas State University is a liberal arts university, yet the first cut that was made was to the arts. How can this be? How can we, as a nation, show so little respect for the life pursuits that produced a da Vinci, a Beethoven, a Mozart, or a Nureyev, and still consider ourselves people of culture and discernment? Educated? Civilized?
But that is exactly what happens, time and time again. When the cut was made, they did not cut their funding to the athletic department, which they give over $400,000 a year for a cost buy down of season tickets for the students, to ensure that the athletic events are well attended. In fact, the athletic department receives, in one way or another, over $1.5 million a year in student fees, the single largest expenditure in the budget, higher even than the student union. There was no suggestion of cuts to them, despite the fact that far less than half of the students purchase season tickets, and less than that ever set foot in the re center, for which student fees are paying for renovations currently under way.
Student Publications, at that same meeting, asked for an additional 7% in funding for the coming year, and didn't get turned down cold, despite the calls of the legislature to cut all spending by 7% this upcoming year. While I am personally beholden to SP for providing my opinionated son an opportunity to vent about whatever is annoying him on a weekly basis in a column that is published in the KSU daily paper, The Collegian, I am reasonably sure that every student on campus is probably not benefiting personally from the experience of having that paper available to them. (And let me say again, I AM grateful that he is given an outlet for his cynicism besides a phone call to me.)
The list of items which are funded by student fees is vast, amounting to millions of dollars a year. This is not to imply, in any way, that the funding of any group is not justified. On the contrary, all are worthy of our support. The entire point of a liberal arts education is to be exposed, whether or not you choose to partake, in the widest possible variety of experiences, to broaden and expand your perspective, to enable you to see more than one side of an issue, to ensure that you are a well rounded human being when you emerge at the end of your four, or five, or six years of university life.
But unfortunately, the reality is, when funding cuts come, the first item on the chopping block in most educational environments, be it elementary, secondary, or post-secondary, will be the music program, one of the premiere arts in that very same liberal arts education we hold up as the ultimate in academic experience. I think we, as a society, have not only underfunded, but undervalued, the contribution of the arts to our lives. We have dismissed them as ephemeral, inconsequential, trivialities, when in fact, the exact opposite is the case.
It is well documented that the various arts provide far more than a simple diversion in our busy lives. To give one example, there is a very strong correlation between music and post-secondary graduation rates. Across the board, the highest graduation rate for any group on campus is typically the marching band, which boasts almost a 100% rate of graduation within five years for its student members. Those students hail from every college and department in the university; not even half of them are actually music majors.
Music students have some of the highest achieving majors on campus, including physics, pre-med, chemistry, math, and engineering, affecting and leading students in every single department. Their experiences in marching band help prepare them to be leaders of companies, creative entrepreneurs, inventors of new technology, and solid citizens. When you read the list of super achievers in the history of our nation, many of them were once members of their alma mater's marching band, and it is not by accident. The lessons you learn in group participation and leadership and solidarity are life lessons as well, and serve them effectively in their future pursuits.
In addition, by grade point average, you will find the music students in any school at any level to be the top students in the school. The orchestra, the symphony band, the marching band, and other musical ensembles are smart and successful. This is not a coincidence, I believe, since studies have clearly shown that kids who participate in music have higher IQ's and are more successful overall than the general student population. I do not know whether music makes kids smarter, or whether smart kids are drawn to music and the arts, but the correlation is irrefutable, and the link is direct.
I believe that the same would be true for other artistic pursuits, as the dedication and talents that lead to being a dancer or an actor or a writer are not limited to the learning environment, but a life lesson in success. The arts are not just about eye or ear candy - they teach strategies for life accomplishment. We all want our children to be successful, we tell them money doesn't buy happiness, but then we also remind them it doesn't hurt. But money does not buy life satisfaction, and the beauty given to our world by those who pursue the arts cannot be replaced with nickels and dimes.
We, as a society, have failed ourselves and our future generations when we shirk our responsibility to fund the arts. Even in dire times, when money is tight and budgets need crunching, the arts must remain a vital part of our educational system. The world is a far more beautiful place because of the creative artists among us. Let us not fail our future citizens by depriving them of the best that our generations have to offer.
Fund the arts, and let the band play on.
Saturday, November 22, 2008
Petition site
If you are interested in the funding of the arts, and in reading the online petition to save the band, you can go to the online petition site to see what other people think about the KSU marching band, as well as the music program as a whole. I know I speak for every student in the KSU music department when I say they would appreciate your support.
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/savetheksubands
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/savetheksubands
Sunday, November 16, 2008
Charity begins at home....
Last night I had the opportunity to attend a fundraising dinner for a community organization with which I have been sometimes joyfully, sometimes frustratedly, but always blessedly associated for quite a few years. For a long time, the biggest part of my association consisted of writing a check at church and dropping it in the offering plate, to be accounted for and passed on without really having to think much about it. It was easy and made me feel good, and community organizations always need funds, so it was a win/win for everyone. I had given of my blessings to others, I had forwarded my bounty to the less fortunate, and I felt that I had, in a small way, made a difference.
Then, a few years ago, when time was in greater supply than money, I got involved on a more personal level by volunteering my time and talents, giving myself in a practical way to a cause that I believe in and think is worth supporting. The organization is called Community LINC (Living In New Community was the original name, until some copyright issues came into play, long story, anyway....) and they work with homeless families to put them on the road to success.
The Community LINC program is not, by any standard, an easy path. While people are pulled out of homelessness and given fully stocked apartments and a lot of other help is offered, they have a contract they must fulfill, with the organization, and ultimately, with themselves. They have an imperative to change, to evolve, to make themselves better people, and it is not optional, because the very foundation of the LINC program is making more effective choices, and teaching children good life choices, so that they will never find themselves in the midst of disaster like that again.
There are, sadly, a fair number of failures in the program, which means they drop out of the rigorous course they must follow, and they are asked to leave. The most difficult part, for the staff, is knowing that when they go, the children will once again be homeless, without stability or even a place to lay their heads. But it is not against the law to be homeless in America, and you cannot save a family that will not save itself, no matter how much you may want to.
Resources are, for these organizations, extremely limited. They do not have nationally funded budgets, supported year after year by huge corporations who use it as a way to blunt the impact on their bottom line, and as a way to present themselves as model citizens in their communities.
These small charities who work in the urban core making a direct impact on families in dire straights are, for the most part, shoestring operations, making a budget that barely exists stretch to unbelievable lengths. They spend the better part of their administrative days begging for money from everyone with whom they come into contact. So when you are faced with a family who cannot or will not follow the path set out for them, the one that will allow them to lift themselves from the poverty, you must cut the tie in order to try and save the next family who is willing to do what they must to succeed. It is a harsh reality, and a heart-breaking one as well, but it is the only choice, when your resources are barely enough to fund the basics.
The desire to work at a place like Community LINC is a labor of love, something that comes from the heart, because the success feeds something inside the soul that cannot be bought any other way. When Jesus commanded us to love our neighbors as ourselves, he was not talking about superficial matters. He was talking about loving them enough to brave being rebuffed, and to come back and try again. He was talking about pulling people from the precipice and giving them the chance to make good, not only for themselves, but for their children. He was talking about giving people who have no chance the opportunity for something better by sharing what we have with those who have nothing at all. That is what the staff faces on a daily basis, and while not a lucrative calling, it is a fulfilling one.
I am fond of saying that if Jesus were on earth today, he would not be found in my suburban neighborhood, or in my multi-million dollar church building. I believe I would find Him at 39th and Troost, where C-LINC is to be found, amongst the people for whom he openly acknowledged he came to earth - the sinners, the outcasts, the hopeless. People, whom but for the grace of God, could be me.
My volunteer work at C-LINC is of a practical nature. I help, once or twice a year, to refurbish the apartments that families move into when they arrive, ready to work at changing their lives. It is an almost insurmountable task, at times, because the buildings are ancient, and, as should be expected, not in a part of town where maintenance is the norm. Rehabbing one of these apartments is much more than painting a wall or washing a floor. We tear things down, pull things apart, rebuild and redo and install new, in order to make a difference, not for the moment, but hopefully for the long term, to gift not once, but over and over again, the families that will live there.
The buildings themselves were a sort of gift several years ago, and it was a huge, but very expensive undertaking to move from the temporary place they had worked out of previously into this permanent location. There are six buildings, in a row, on Troost Avenue, which, for people who live around me, is known primarily for the crime rate, not it's upscale housing. If there is a murder in Kansas City, it is, unfortunately, all too often in the area of Troost where these apartments are located. It is a gang culture, a world of violence and fear that mostly reigns down there, and the C-LINC housing is a stalwart in the midst of the chaos that is all around it.
That is not meant to overstate the situation, because there are good things happening there as well. There is a sort of urban renewal occuring in that area, one which, I believe, may have been fueled, at least in part, by the good work being done by community organizations such as C-LINC who have invested not only in that area, but in the people who live there.
These buildings were purchased by C-LINC for $1 each from a generous person who also probably wanted to unload them, thus fulfilling two needs at once. They needed to be gutted, at the very least, and probably should have been torn down and started over. But C-LINC doesn't have those kinds of resources available, so instead, they have taken every volunteer and donation and rebuilt and rehabbed and revitalized their little bit of the ghetto. It is anything but a perfect world, and we would be kidding ourselves to imagine that buildings which were too old to rehab 25 years ago are in decent shape today, no matter how many bandaids we may have applied.
The roofs all leak on and off. The stairways were decrepit, although a group of older men from my church who have taken to calling themselves The Atonement Carpenters has been gradually rebuilding them, and they are now in much better condition than they were. The walls all need repair, the basements are a dungeon, the flooring is a disaster - you get the idea. Most of the people I know wouldn't consider these apartments premium housing, but when you come from a homeless shelter with your children, you have a different perspective on what constitutes the minimum basic requirements.
The Carpenters are handymen from all walks of life who are, for the most part, retired, and once a week they come down to C-LINC to work on whatever need is most urgently pressing at that moment. They fix roofs, they mud walls, they repair and rehab and rework to make things livable for the people who inhabit these apartments and call them home. They donate not only their time and talents, but are unsung heroes who donate their money and their materials as well, and in much larger measure than almost anyone realizes, in order to leave this world a better place for their having been here.
There have also been some incredible donations from people around the city that have made a huge difference for the people there. Heating and cooling systems replaced. New windows have been installed. A children's center has been built. Computers are donated, books are donated, towels and kitchenware and furniture and other items are given by people from all over the city who want to participate in some way in the renewal of lives.
I have had people ask me, when in the midst of a month long project, why I would go down there day after day to work, and worry that it is too dangerous or that I might get hurt physically or emotionally. My honest, my only, answer is that it is where the need is greatest, so that is where I am called to be. You cannot take people out of their element and expect them to succeed. Instead, you have to light the candle in the darkness, and hope that by so doing, they will light a few more along their path, and thus, enlighten that world from within.
The families that enter the world of C-LINC are entering a different way of life, one which most of them have never known. They predominantly come from single parent families who have never known security, and for whom life has been a struggle since they were born. The point of the program to which they must adhere is not to simply lift them out of poverty for the time being, but to give them the tools to lift themselves up and stay there, a much harder, and much bigger, job, both for them, and for those whose mission it is to serve them.
They are provided with housing, and must attend classes in parenting, drug counseling, alcohol counseling, Al-Anon or mental health counseling for whatever issues they are experiencing, and weekly budgeting classes. They must attend school with an end goal, such as earning their GED, or find some kind of work, and the children must attend school and maintain certain grades and standards as well.
This is a family program, and every member of the family must actively participate and pull their weight. While there is support and aid for everyone in many different age-appropriate ways, in the end, the onus is on them to succeed, and they will be allowed to fail if that is what they are striving for. C-LINC is not a free ride for anyone, and if you succeed and reach graduation, it is because you have done the work to put yourself in a position to succeed in life.
The most impressive part of the program, to me, is the required savings that they enforce during weekly budgeting sessions. Most of the families come into the program unemployed, most of the adults do not have even a high school diploma, and they are in a pattern of hopelessness and despair that perpetuates their poor decision making.
Once they enter the program, the first thing they must do is to establish a savings account, and half of their weekly income, from whatever source it is received, must be put away in that account. No matter how pressing their bills, no matter if there is a birthday or something else for which they need money, they must put away that 50% before they can have any money to meet their immediate needs.
While you may feel that with housing and utilities already paid for, this would not be so difficult, you also have to remember that most of them have no money at all. They must buy food and supplies and the basics of life. Even if they ultimately are eligible for welfare, and in Missouri, those payments are not much, they still start out with nothing, and it is hard for them to put away half that money for a future that is unknown.
Part of the problem for most of these families is that the future has never been secure, so they think in short term mode all the time. There is no reason to put something aside for a future that will never come, especially when the needs are so great right now. But what they learn over time is that their future depends on what they do now. It is a change, not just in how they use their money, but in how they live their lives.
When they watch their bank account grow, they also see their future adding up. That money will be used for a down payment on rent, or even a home. It will pay for education or a car to get to work. It is small, by most people's standards, and adds up very slowly. But in the end, if they stick with the program, they will have enough to get a solid re-start in a life, a second chance built not on the goodness of strangers, but on their own hard work and willingness to make the necessary changes.
There are a lot of failures, of course. People do not change easily, and it is all too common to be sucked back into the cycle of poverty and despair that brought you there in the first place. There are many families who begin the program believing in the possiblities, but who, over time, simply lose their drive under the influence of negativity outside their own walls.
But there are spectacular successes as well, and it is for them that the faithful continue to work and volunteer and hope and pray and give. It is for those who believe in themselves enough to make the leap into a new way of thinking that we go down to 39th and Troost for a day or a week or a month to try and make a difference. Every life that we help to turn around is a candle that has been lit, and whose light shines far beyond the apartment that family inhabits. Our families inspire their families and their friends. If our families can do it, so can others. It is in that inspiration that hope is born, that change occurs, that the cycle is interrupted and hopefully broken for good.
Last night, at this fundraiser, attended primarily by people who have more money than time, and who gave of what they have with incredible generosity, we were allowed a brief picture inside the life of a person helped through their support. We were shown a powerful video, entirely unscripted, of a resident of C-LINC seeing her apartment for the very first time. It would be impossible to be unmoved by the experience, and most people wiped away a tear or two by the end.
I had the extraordinary privilege of being present on the occasion of the making of the video, because the apartment that she received was one that I had worked on, and we were still putting the finishing touches to the place when the very young woman arrived with her little boy. Although my heart is, I hope, always in the right place when I do that work, I do not do it for any recognition at all and have never expected any, I was given a tremendous gift by being allowed to participate unexpectedly in that moment when she saw the apartment into which I poured so much of my own heart and hard work.
She began to sob, loudly and unabashedly at the front door, and continued as she moved throughout the apartment, seeing what we had done for her. Her face lit up as she saw all that she was being given, and her most memorable words were that she had never lived in a place that was so beautiful. It is not, by the standards of most of the people I know, anything special - it is, on the contrary, a pretty minimal, basic place to live, but to her, it was a mansion of great worth, and she showed us how she valued it in her face and her actions and her words.
Her other memorable statement, one which I will never forget, because it was the promise I most value from her, was that, "I just don't know how to thank them enough but just to do right for myself." She gifted me with her gratitude, and it is the greatest gift a person can receive.
It is easy to get gifts from those we love, and who love us. It is a simple matter to write a check, or to hand over our used belongings that we no longer want. But it goes against my Minnesota upbringing to receive the recognition and the gratitude that I received that day. It was a life changing moment for me, when I was forced, by surprise, to accept her emotional thank you, and to confront, in that visceral way, the deep impact that we can have on someone we don't even know.
In our country today, there is a lot of talk about the poor, and meeting needs, but most people have never had a chance to put a face to the poverty, to put a real human being into the picture. It is a vague someone out there, not really associated with us, that is being affected, and it's easy to talk clinically about fault and responsibility and solution provision.
Today, for a few moments, I want to share with you the gift of gratitude that I received. I hope that you will know, whatever you do, however you do it, wherever you give, while you can't save everyone, it is worth saving the one. Whatever gift you share, whatever organization fulfills the mission for you, whether it be money or time or talents, know that it God's work you are doing, and that you are the embodiement of God to those whose lives you are changing. You are fulfilling the words of Jesus, when he said that whatever you do to the least of these, you do to me, also.
Jesus talked about leaving the 99 sheep to find the one. Please follow this link to see what one of his missing sheep really looks like.
http://www.communitylinc.org/Home/ClientsStory.htm
Then, a few years ago, when time was in greater supply than money, I got involved on a more personal level by volunteering my time and talents, giving myself in a practical way to a cause that I believe in and think is worth supporting. The organization is called Community LINC (Living In New Community was the original name, until some copyright issues came into play, long story, anyway....) and they work with homeless families to put them on the road to success.
The Community LINC program is not, by any standard, an easy path. While people are pulled out of homelessness and given fully stocked apartments and a lot of other help is offered, they have a contract they must fulfill, with the organization, and ultimately, with themselves. They have an imperative to change, to evolve, to make themselves better people, and it is not optional, because the very foundation of the LINC program is making more effective choices, and teaching children good life choices, so that they will never find themselves in the midst of disaster like that again.
There are, sadly, a fair number of failures in the program, which means they drop out of the rigorous course they must follow, and they are asked to leave. The most difficult part, for the staff, is knowing that when they go, the children will once again be homeless, without stability or even a place to lay their heads. But it is not against the law to be homeless in America, and you cannot save a family that will not save itself, no matter how much you may want to.
Resources are, for these organizations, extremely limited. They do not have nationally funded budgets, supported year after year by huge corporations who use it as a way to blunt the impact on their bottom line, and as a way to present themselves as model citizens in their communities.
These small charities who work in the urban core making a direct impact on families in dire straights are, for the most part, shoestring operations, making a budget that barely exists stretch to unbelievable lengths. They spend the better part of their administrative days begging for money from everyone with whom they come into contact. So when you are faced with a family who cannot or will not follow the path set out for them, the one that will allow them to lift themselves from the poverty, you must cut the tie in order to try and save the next family who is willing to do what they must to succeed. It is a harsh reality, and a heart-breaking one as well, but it is the only choice, when your resources are barely enough to fund the basics.
The desire to work at a place like Community LINC is a labor of love, something that comes from the heart, because the success feeds something inside the soul that cannot be bought any other way. When Jesus commanded us to love our neighbors as ourselves, he was not talking about superficial matters. He was talking about loving them enough to brave being rebuffed, and to come back and try again. He was talking about pulling people from the precipice and giving them the chance to make good, not only for themselves, but for their children. He was talking about giving people who have no chance the opportunity for something better by sharing what we have with those who have nothing at all. That is what the staff faces on a daily basis, and while not a lucrative calling, it is a fulfilling one.
I am fond of saying that if Jesus were on earth today, he would not be found in my suburban neighborhood, or in my multi-million dollar church building. I believe I would find Him at 39th and Troost, where C-LINC is to be found, amongst the people for whom he openly acknowledged he came to earth - the sinners, the outcasts, the hopeless. People, whom but for the grace of God, could be me.
My volunteer work at C-LINC is of a practical nature. I help, once or twice a year, to refurbish the apartments that families move into when they arrive, ready to work at changing their lives. It is an almost insurmountable task, at times, because the buildings are ancient, and, as should be expected, not in a part of town where maintenance is the norm. Rehabbing one of these apartments is much more than painting a wall or washing a floor. We tear things down, pull things apart, rebuild and redo and install new, in order to make a difference, not for the moment, but hopefully for the long term, to gift not once, but over and over again, the families that will live there.
The buildings themselves were a sort of gift several years ago, and it was a huge, but very expensive undertaking to move from the temporary place they had worked out of previously into this permanent location. There are six buildings, in a row, on Troost Avenue, which, for people who live around me, is known primarily for the crime rate, not it's upscale housing. If there is a murder in Kansas City, it is, unfortunately, all too often in the area of Troost where these apartments are located. It is a gang culture, a world of violence and fear that mostly reigns down there, and the C-LINC housing is a stalwart in the midst of the chaos that is all around it.
That is not meant to overstate the situation, because there are good things happening there as well. There is a sort of urban renewal occuring in that area, one which, I believe, may have been fueled, at least in part, by the good work being done by community organizations such as C-LINC who have invested not only in that area, but in the people who live there.
These buildings were purchased by C-LINC for $1 each from a generous person who also probably wanted to unload them, thus fulfilling two needs at once. They needed to be gutted, at the very least, and probably should have been torn down and started over. But C-LINC doesn't have those kinds of resources available, so instead, they have taken every volunteer and donation and rebuilt and rehabbed and revitalized their little bit of the ghetto. It is anything but a perfect world, and we would be kidding ourselves to imagine that buildings which were too old to rehab 25 years ago are in decent shape today, no matter how many bandaids we may have applied.
The roofs all leak on and off. The stairways were decrepit, although a group of older men from my church who have taken to calling themselves The Atonement Carpenters has been gradually rebuilding them, and they are now in much better condition than they were. The walls all need repair, the basements are a dungeon, the flooring is a disaster - you get the idea. Most of the people I know wouldn't consider these apartments premium housing, but when you come from a homeless shelter with your children, you have a different perspective on what constitutes the minimum basic requirements.
The Carpenters are handymen from all walks of life who are, for the most part, retired, and once a week they come down to C-LINC to work on whatever need is most urgently pressing at that moment. They fix roofs, they mud walls, they repair and rehab and rework to make things livable for the people who inhabit these apartments and call them home. They donate not only their time and talents, but are unsung heroes who donate their money and their materials as well, and in much larger measure than almost anyone realizes, in order to leave this world a better place for their having been here.
There have also been some incredible donations from people around the city that have made a huge difference for the people there. Heating and cooling systems replaced. New windows have been installed. A children's center has been built. Computers are donated, books are donated, towels and kitchenware and furniture and other items are given by people from all over the city who want to participate in some way in the renewal of lives.
I have had people ask me, when in the midst of a month long project, why I would go down there day after day to work, and worry that it is too dangerous or that I might get hurt physically or emotionally. My honest, my only, answer is that it is where the need is greatest, so that is where I am called to be. You cannot take people out of their element and expect them to succeed. Instead, you have to light the candle in the darkness, and hope that by so doing, they will light a few more along their path, and thus, enlighten that world from within.
The families that enter the world of C-LINC are entering a different way of life, one which most of them have never known. They predominantly come from single parent families who have never known security, and for whom life has been a struggle since they were born. The point of the program to which they must adhere is not to simply lift them out of poverty for the time being, but to give them the tools to lift themselves up and stay there, a much harder, and much bigger, job, both for them, and for those whose mission it is to serve them.
They are provided with housing, and must attend classes in parenting, drug counseling, alcohol counseling, Al-Anon or mental health counseling for whatever issues they are experiencing, and weekly budgeting classes. They must attend school with an end goal, such as earning their GED, or find some kind of work, and the children must attend school and maintain certain grades and standards as well.
This is a family program, and every member of the family must actively participate and pull their weight. While there is support and aid for everyone in many different age-appropriate ways, in the end, the onus is on them to succeed, and they will be allowed to fail if that is what they are striving for. C-LINC is not a free ride for anyone, and if you succeed and reach graduation, it is because you have done the work to put yourself in a position to succeed in life.
The most impressive part of the program, to me, is the required savings that they enforce during weekly budgeting sessions. Most of the families come into the program unemployed, most of the adults do not have even a high school diploma, and they are in a pattern of hopelessness and despair that perpetuates their poor decision making.
Once they enter the program, the first thing they must do is to establish a savings account, and half of their weekly income, from whatever source it is received, must be put away in that account. No matter how pressing their bills, no matter if there is a birthday or something else for which they need money, they must put away that 50% before they can have any money to meet their immediate needs.
While you may feel that with housing and utilities already paid for, this would not be so difficult, you also have to remember that most of them have no money at all. They must buy food and supplies and the basics of life. Even if they ultimately are eligible for welfare, and in Missouri, those payments are not much, they still start out with nothing, and it is hard for them to put away half that money for a future that is unknown.
Part of the problem for most of these families is that the future has never been secure, so they think in short term mode all the time. There is no reason to put something aside for a future that will never come, especially when the needs are so great right now. But what they learn over time is that their future depends on what they do now. It is a change, not just in how they use their money, but in how they live their lives.
When they watch their bank account grow, they also see their future adding up. That money will be used for a down payment on rent, or even a home. It will pay for education or a car to get to work. It is small, by most people's standards, and adds up very slowly. But in the end, if they stick with the program, they will have enough to get a solid re-start in a life, a second chance built not on the goodness of strangers, but on their own hard work and willingness to make the necessary changes.
There are a lot of failures, of course. People do not change easily, and it is all too common to be sucked back into the cycle of poverty and despair that brought you there in the first place. There are many families who begin the program believing in the possiblities, but who, over time, simply lose their drive under the influence of negativity outside their own walls.
But there are spectacular successes as well, and it is for them that the faithful continue to work and volunteer and hope and pray and give. It is for those who believe in themselves enough to make the leap into a new way of thinking that we go down to 39th and Troost for a day or a week or a month to try and make a difference. Every life that we help to turn around is a candle that has been lit, and whose light shines far beyond the apartment that family inhabits. Our families inspire their families and their friends. If our families can do it, so can others. It is in that inspiration that hope is born, that change occurs, that the cycle is interrupted and hopefully broken for good.
Last night, at this fundraiser, attended primarily by people who have more money than time, and who gave of what they have with incredible generosity, we were allowed a brief picture inside the life of a person helped through their support. We were shown a powerful video, entirely unscripted, of a resident of C-LINC seeing her apartment for the very first time. It would be impossible to be unmoved by the experience, and most people wiped away a tear or two by the end.
I had the extraordinary privilege of being present on the occasion of the making of the video, because the apartment that she received was one that I had worked on, and we were still putting the finishing touches to the place when the very young woman arrived with her little boy. Although my heart is, I hope, always in the right place when I do that work, I do not do it for any recognition at all and have never expected any, I was given a tremendous gift by being allowed to participate unexpectedly in that moment when she saw the apartment into which I poured so much of my own heart and hard work.
She began to sob, loudly and unabashedly at the front door, and continued as she moved throughout the apartment, seeing what we had done for her. Her face lit up as she saw all that she was being given, and her most memorable words were that she had never lived in a place that was so beautiful. It is not, by the standards of most of the people I know, anything special - it is, on the contrary, a pretty minimal, basic place to live, but to her, it was a mansion of great worth, and she showed us how she valued it in her face and her actions and her words.
Her other memorable statement, one which I will never forget, because it was the promise I most value from her, was that, "I just don't know how to thank them enough but just to do right for myself." She gifted me with her gratitude, and it is the greatest gift a person can receive.
It is easy to get gifts from those we love, and who love us. It is a simple matter to write a check, or to hand over our used belongings that we no longer want. But it goes against my Minnesota upbringing to receive the recognition and the gratitude that I received that day. It was a life changing moment for me, when I was forced, by surprise, to accept her emotional thank you, and to confront, in that visceral way, the deep impact that we can have on someone we don't even know.
In our country today, there is a lot of talk about the poor, and meeting needs, but most people have never had a chance to put a face to the poverty, to put a real human being into the picture. It is a vague someone out there, not really associated with us, that is being affected, and it's easy to talk clinically about fault and responsibility and solution provision.
Today, for a few moments, I want to share with you the gift of gratitude that I received. I hope that you will know, whatever you do, however you do it, wherever you give, while you can't save everyone, it is worth saving the one. Whatever gift you share, whatever organization fulfills the mission for you, whether it be money or time or talents, know that it God's work you are doing, and that you are the embodiement of God to those whose lives you are changing. You are fulfilling the words of Jesus, when he said that whatever you do to the least of these, you do to me, also.
Jesus talked about leaving the 99 sheep to find the one. Please follow this link to see what one of his missing sheep really looks like.
http://www.communitylinc.org/Home/ClientsStory.htm
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