Sometimes our clients run into a string of unforeseen hardships all at once. Over the past year, “Marcus” had to deal with the death of his newborn baby and his sister. These tragedies involved funeral expenses and travel costs above his typical expenses. These events also led to severe depression and left Marcus struggling to make his payments. A grant from Threshold to New Life and other agencies assisted him in getting his outstanding rent balance paid off and he is now in a much better situation and has been able to remain in his home.
Threshold to New Life
Personal Care Kits from Imagine Church
Imagine Church (https://imaginechurchmn.com/) serving the St. Michael, Albertville and Otsego areas has a heart for outreach. It is likely borne out of the love for community and those in need from its Lead Pastor, Josh Christenson. Josh serve in a homeless ministry with a previous church prior to starting Imagine Church. The experience has changed him.
His team organized and assembled about 100 personal care kits for distribution among those in need, primarily folks in the Twin City homeless community. We began distribution this morning to several folks with smiling faces!
Thank you to Imagine Church for thinking of and caring for “the least of these”
Great FIRST event!
Our organization has not really attempted to raise funds in the past. Our funding has been through “attraction rather than promotion”, mostly people that know us and want to support and join in with what we do.
Our board felt led to urge us out of our comfort zone to create an event to attract those not yet known to us, to test our message and attempt to gain further support – to add both “friends” and “funds” to our organization.
The outcome was overwhelming.
We had about 80 people in the room, of about 60 were people that had no direct connection to us. We presented what we do and how we’re different. We had two great testimonies by people and partners we’ve helped. It was so affirming and uplifting to those of us that work in the organization as well as for our board members in attendance.
We shattered our goal for friend and fundraising. Now, we get to the necessary task of putting these gifts to work in our community through the families we serve.
We are grateful to a generous God and his role in bringing others to us in loving support.
A Refuge from a Troubled Past
The COVID pandemic has changed many things for most of us. For our organization, we’ve had less demand to assist with the traditional housing as there has been (thankfully) a wave of government support for those in great need. So even though our donations will be down from last year, we have some excess funds that we intend to put to work in the community.
At our board of directors meeting in September, we discussed the idea of stepping up the amount of collaboration we do with sober houses. We have been involved with them to a degree, but we haven’t been super intentional about it. The board agreed. So, we have some work to do.
Frequently, as a patient exits chemical dependency treatment, he/she is urged to enter a sober living situation, to put a bit more distance between themselves and their past. This offers a safe and supportive environment to help one get off to a good start in the transition back to “normal” life.
The challenge is while having been in treatment for many weeks (or longer) most have little or no means to pay even a modest deposit for rent. That’s where we step in. We typically will provide a no strings attached grant to the client, while he/she must raise some of the funds themselves and we put our money in last, to complete the agreement.
The picture above is one of a handful of clients expressing gratitude for our good work. Our good work is a reflection of the good God that we serve, give all the credit and all the glory for what we have been provided to share.
FEATURED ON KARE-11
A new book from our co-founder, Richard Bahr. You can check out his website, purchase a book OR connect with him directly to volunteer in a homeless ministry at www.thosepeoplebook.org
Personal Care Kits to be Distributed on Thanksgiving
We have much to be grateful for at Thanksgiving, nevertheless all days of the year. We’re expressing our gratitude by distributing 125 personal care kits at our daily, morning breakfast held by 2.4 Ministries at The Salvation Army Harbor Light facility in Minneapolis. Bombas, the sock manufacturer, donated another 1,000 pairs of socks that we’ll provide over the course of this winter, and each kit has a pair.
#thanks #thanksgiving #bombas #donation #gratitude #homeless #homelessness
“THOSE PEOPLE” author interviewed
Our co-founder, Richard Bahr, was interviewed by Bill Arnold on KTIS 900 AM radio today, reviewing his new book, Those People – The True Character of the Homeless.
You can get the book on Amazon through this link.
To hear the radio interview, click here.
To learn more about Richard, his work, writing and ministry, go to his webpage at www.richardbahr.com
Rain Ponchos Distributed
Did you notice it was raining A LOT lately? How do you get out of the rain when you’re homeless? We lack a real great answer for this, but we did purchase and distribute A LOT of rain ponchos this past week in the various homeless communities we serve.
Update and New Family Member
When we met Brittany, she was many months clean and sober, recently obtained housing, hoped to regain custody of her daughter and was looking for work. Since, she’s added to her family a new son!
Obtaining affordable daycare remains a barrier to getting a full time job (she wants one!) but her spirits are good. She’s grateful for assistance that Thresholds and other agencies have provided to help her get life back on track.
We’re a big fan of Brittney’s as we are with all people for which we “step in the gap”. Sometimes that small, little thing to us means the world to another.
Serving Others Through Packing
One of the things we LOVE is getting folks together to love on others through serving. T2NL acquired the components along with special thanks to Jellycat for providing the travel bags.
Each kits contained soap, shampoo, razors, lip balm, toothpaste and toothbrush, nail clipper, deodorant and an inspirational tract.
We packed 100+ kits that will be distributed to folks in the homeless community at shelters in Minneapolis this fall.
