The Tolfree family, helped by Foundation Communities.

PROBLEM:

More than 2,000 Austin families will consider “canceling Christmas” this year because they can’t afford the toys, gifts or even food to celebrate.

SOLUTION:

You or your company can adopt a family and save Christmas.

It’s simple. Just visit Foundation Communities to download a family sponsorship form, fill it in to let them know what size family you’d like to sponsor, etc.

Send in your family sponsorship form by December 11.

This is your chance to be a hero, folks. Your donation goes straight to the families with the most need, and you can spend as much or as little as you want. Foundation Communites offers lots of gift ideas for each person in the family, so this is a easy, fun way to share the joy of the season.  

And if you’ve ever seen a child on Christmas morning opening a present and seeing exactly the toy they asked Santa for…  Seriously, it will make your whole year.

What I love about Foundation Communities is that they have an amazing way of helping not just families with the most need but Austin overall because they’re repurposing empty hotels and apartments and condos into affordable housing that helps get families off the streets. They also give them a leg-up offering classes, training, community daycare and other services that give families a solid base for success.

So I don’t feel bad about pulling out my marketing copywriting hat to sell this opportunity to you.

Get the form here.

Send it in by December 11.

Get your co-workers, employees, and family involved.

Save Christmas!

We started doing Dream Dinners a few years ago, driving all the way up to the Mesa location until they opened the Sunset Valley store closer to our home. If you’re not familiar with Dream Dinners, here’s how it works:

You go online and browse the schedule of available times. You’re going to do the assembling of meals, not the cooking, but it can still take from half and hour to more than an hour (depending on how much chatting you do with the other guests). Then you pick at least six meals to assemble from their menu, which changes every month. Pay online with your credit card, then show up for your time.

When you get there, they give you an apron and the list of meals you purchased. Each meal serves about six people, but you can break a meal into two servings of three. Then you wash your hands and go over to that meal’s station, where – and this is the great part – all of the pans and ingredients are pre-cut and ready to throw together. It’s like having your own personal sous chef.

If you happen to book the same time as a few friends, you can bring a bottle of wine and make a little cooking happy hour out of it. Just… stay…focused…Monica… and don’t confuse the ginger with the horseradish…

What makes Austin Dream Dinners great is that it’s owned and operated by two really fantastic women who are always there. I mean, like, always. This is their life. And they’ve been very successful businesswomen, and they deserve it.

I recieve their emails with notices of specials, new meals, etc. But this email was different.

Dream Dinners Is Now Taking Applications for Families Who Need a Helping Hand

Dream Dinners will provide three Austin families in need with free meals for three months as part of our Feeding Families In Need Outreach Program. We will collect nominations for families in need until May 18 and our review committee will select three families no later than June 1. Once the families are chosen, they will immediately be notified and will be able to order their first of three months worth of dinners.

Applications can be found at:

• Sunset Valley Homestead, 5207 Brodie Ln., Austin, TX 78745, 512-358-8833
• Mesa Woods, 8127 Mesa Dr., Austin, TX 78759, 512-342-6860
• RR 620 N, 12129 RR 620 N., Austin, TX 78750, 512-401-2800

You may also email sunsetvalleyhometx@dreamdinners.com or fax 512-358-8377 to obtain or submit an application.

I’m having a hard time not nominating myself, but if you can think of a few families who could use a break from groceries, please let Dream Dinners know.

You did it: 1,000 of you pledged to donate, volunteer, or spread the word about Pledge to End Hunger, and as a result, Tyson’s sending a semi-truck loaded with 140,000 meals to the Capital Area Food Bank on Monday, March 16. Way to go!

Now we have a chance to send two more Tyson food trucks to a food bank, and it’s so easy to do.

Just go to Pledge to End Hunger and click one of three options:

GIVE – Make a donation on the Share Our Strength website. $35 can help feed a child three meals a day for more than a month.
VOLUNTEER – Enter your zip code to find a food bank or pantry to donate your time.
SHARE- Twitter, blog, e-mail… just get talking about the Pledge to End Hunger. Get other people to pledge, too.

The two states with the most pledges will also get a truckload of food . So keep going. Send this post to everyone you know and urge them to take time out and make a pledge. Call it your good deed for the day.

If you’re going to put yourself out there, try to meet new people, find new opportunities… you might as well wipe some  cans and sort some peanut butter.

Scott Ingram of NetworkIn Austin and Austin TopGuns came up with this pairing of networking and giving/volutneering, and they’ve chosen the Capital Area Food Bank as the recipient. There are two ways to be a part of this effort:

1. First, you can make a donation. Between now and the end of the month, you can make a financial contribution (from $5 on up!) to the Virtual Fund Drive. Every little bit helps, and you’ll see that all dollars contributed to the Food Bank go a very long way. Please give generously!

2. Second, you can volunteer. They’ve set up 4 volunteer shifts (see below).  Their goal is to completely fill all 185 volunteer shifts, a contribution of 505 volunteer hours!

Thusday – 2/26: 6:00 – 9:00pm 
Friday – 2/27: 7:30 – 9:30am 
Friday – 2/27: 9:00am – Noon 
Friday – 2/27: 1:00 – 4:00pm

What a cool idea, huh? If you’ve never volunteered at the Food Bank before, you’re going to find it fascinating. They do a great job of training you, and eveyrone seems to enjoy the “Lucy Ricardo at the chocolate factory” atmosphere. Sign up, and bring a friend!

On Monday, January 26th, from 6 to 7 p.m., I Live Here I Give Here is presenting a panel discussion on poverty and its effects on Austin. Representatives from several local nonprofits will talk about the severity of the problem and what is being done to alleviate it. The event takes place at Caritas, 611 Neches, and for those who like a little bourbon with their public policy, the discussion continues during happy hour at the Tiniest Bar in Texas, 817 West 5th Street.

“Every little bit helps.” I know you hear people saying that all the time when they want you to donate money or things, and it sounds suspicious. If you do only give $1 or $5, you think they’re thinking to themselves, “I didn’t actually mean that, you cheap bastard.”

Remember that “little bit” is relative. And so now I’m going to tell you a personal story that makes me look like a loser.

After college, I moved to Chicago (Hyde Park), where I waited tables at the Medici and worked as in intern at Today’s Chicago Woman magazine, which paid me in shoes and an occasional free dinner, but not in actual, real money. I remember having $4 to my name and having to make that last for the next couple of days until I could pick up another shift at the Medici and enjoy my shift meal (Oh, the spinach pizza with jalapenos!) before the work started. This happened a lot…. but I don’t remember being too upset about it. I had friends, and we helped each other out. Someone would always throw $5 my way to grab a half-sandwich from Harold’s. (Okay, now I’m making myself hungry.)

The point is…. $5 was a lot to me. It helped me get to that next shift and from there, I could take care of myself. Surely some of you hve similar memories. If you do, then consider making a donation to any local charity. Any of them, but maybe especially one that helps people with basic needs like food and shelter. A good one to consider is Caritas.

I just received an e-mail from them that went something like this….

Dear Friend,                                                  
 
It is an especially difficult time and the demands facing both Caritas of Austin and our community call us to respond. Increased poverty will impact us all, but especially the most vulnerable.

We are experiencing a 60% increase in requests from eligible low income families for rent and utility assistance, but do not have sufficient resources to serve them.
We are seeing a 13% increase in client households needing groceries from our Food Pantry to feed their families.
Our phone system is overloaded with individuals in crisis needing to book an appointment. And despite our best efforts, callers seeking assistance report being on hold anywhere from one to four hours.

This speaks to the level of desperation so many in our community are facing, and to the limited resources at Caritas.
 
With your contribution to Caritas of Austin, we can continue to provide emergency rent and utility assistance for families in crisis, take-home groceries from our food pantry and hot meals in our community kitchen. Your gift will advance the fight against poverty, hunger and homelessness.

You can send $5 or $35 or more or less to Caritas here.

This Saturday, December 6^th, volunteers have a chance to help prevent Reagan High School from being closed. Allen Weeks, who organized HopeFest in October to benefit the St. John neighborhood, is now recruiting for a community outreach effort that could improve school attendance and test scores. Consider giving a few hours this weekend to the families of Reagan High.

Allen e-mailed this request for help:

On Saturday, the Reagan teachers and community will be going out on a “Community Walk” to reach out to all 950 Reagan families. The goal is encourage higher attendance, greater family involvement, and to connect families in need with support services. Teams of two will go out from 9 am to 12 pm, visiting an average of 16 homes with a bag of information and “freebies” from the school, as well as a needs assessment form. There will be a brief conversation at each home, encouraging attendance and recording any questions the parents might have about their child’s progress.

This approach has been very successful at other schools in reaching out to families!

We will have about 25 staff out participating, but we need another 100 volunteers to reach every family.

Would you consider coming out and being part of the “Community Walk”?

We’ll meet at 9 am in the Reagan Cafeteria for breakfast tacos and a brief orientation, and then head out with assigned addresses and maps. All of the addresses are within a few miles of the school. You will have a script in spanish and English to guide you.

If you can come, go to:     https://web.memberclicks.com/mc/quickForm/viewForm.do?orgId=ascc&formId=52193

This will take you to a brief sign-up page so that we know how many are coming.

If you can’t come, maybe you can spread to word to friends or a group that would want to serve. Feel free to forward this e-mail.

Thanks, again, for serving 4.500 folks at HopeFest and helping the St. John Community!

Sincerely,

Allen Weeks

Facilitator

“Stand Up for Reagan” Community Action Team

512-653-4935

 

Sarah Andrews of Meals on Wheels and More wrote me last week with lots of great news about this longstanding organization. First the biggest news was that it is going to be the recipient of the money raised by next year’s Capital 10K race, which last year raised more than $180,000 for University Medical Center Brackenridge. (This is the best race I’ve ever run in Austin, BTW. Very well run.)

The other very big news is that the organization will premiere its documentary, “Wisdom in Their Own Words,” on Monday, November 17, and the Bob Bullock Texas State History Museum, complete with a red carpet for some of the “stars” from the documentary.

Recently, Meals on Wheels and More, Time Warner Cable, Texas Crew and Dan Rather teamed up to help tell the life stories of seven MOWAM clients, who have lived through some of the most trying times of the past century and whose words provide a unique and important perspective on the history of Austin and the importance of services like Meals on Wheels and More in so many people’s lives.

Do you know how people always say they want to have good stories to tell when they’re old? That’s what this documentary is all about. It will introduce you to some people you might have seen and ignored around Austin, and they will blow you away with their stories. These are the kind of stories an older person might tell you that make you want to go out and get a life, too.

There’s the man who lived through desegregation in Austin and four wars. There’s the woman who was a foster parent to more than 200 children. And there’s the man who was a POW for three years and marched three days with a wounded leg to keep from being shot.

What have you done with your life so far?

Sarah continues…

And we’re in the middle of a $5 million building expansion campaign. Based on population projections from the city demographer, we expect that we will need to prepare 2.1 million meals by 2020 to keep up with the demand for services – over twice what we prepare now. The addition to our building will allow us to primarily expand our kitchen facilities and client services department.

The least we can do is help these people and other Central Texans like them. They aren’t mobile enough to get their own meals, and that’s where MOWAM comes in. Consider donating and/or volunteering…. or at least watching the documentary.

However you go, you’ll learn a lot about Austin.

Armando Rayo didn't sleep for 42 hours so he could blog about poverty. Shhh! He's asleep now.

Ha. No, not mine. Mando’s.

Armando Rayo, like a lot of nonprofiteers, sees nothing but possibilities. And even better, he acts on them. When he told me he was going to take advantage of Blog Action Day on poverty and post the whole day, staying awake for 24 hours (which turned into 42 hours), I first thought, “Oh, no sleep? Welcome to my world.” But then I thought, “Wait, that actually sounds like a lot of work.”

Mando is director of Hands On Central Texas, which is the volunteering clearinghouse arm of United Way Capital Area. Despite the fact that his staff was cut in half last month, he still found the energy to post. He even shot, edited, and posted video, one of which featured me mumbling something or another.

Mando sent me this today:

Hey Monica! (Yes, you deserve an official thank you!) Thanks a bunch for doing the video for Blog Action Day: Poverty.  Here’s the link to your post!  http://unitedwaycapitalarea.blogspot.com/2008/10/blog-action-day-poverty.html You’re even more famous now!  
 
Your thoughts and insights on poverty helped us engage more people & it created a platform for meaningful dialogue on the issue.  At the end of the day, our blog & posts ended up being on the top 100 list of the global Blog Action Day official website (http://blogactionday.org) & our YouTube Nonprofit Channel ranked #11!  Below is short write-up of the event….

 
Blog Action Day: Poverty – United Way Capital Area & Hands On Central Texas
 
On October 15, 2008, over 12 thousand bloggers banded together to discuss a single issue – poverty.  We raised awareness, took action, & shook the web! 
 
Mando Rayo, the Director of Hands On Central Texas (with the help of the United Way & Hands On staff) was one of the thousands of bloggers who participated in the global Blog Action Day (http://blogactionday.org).  Instead of blogging for an hour or just one post, Mando ended up staying awake for 42 hours, blogging for 24 hours straight, writing 31 posts, posting 13 videos & engaging hundreds of thousands of people in raising poverty awareness.
 
United Way Capital Area & Hands On Central Texas’ efforts did not go unnoticed.  Our Youtube Nonprofit Channel (www.youtube.com/unitedwaycapitalarea) ranked #11 for the day and the Blog Action Day official website featured our posts and videos on their 100 best list. 
 
You can check out all 31 posts at http://unitedwaycapitalarea.blogspot.com or go to www.handsoncentraltexas.org. 

There are people who talk about poverty every day in Central Texas, and there are people who live in poverty every day in Central Texas, and for the most part they are not the same people. They don’t even look like the same people.

All that is to say what I think lots of people don’t know how to say which is this: Poverty seems to be the lot of African-American and Hispanic Austinites, but the folks trying to lead the change are white.

You gotta give it to white Austin, though. They do try. I mean, go to any gathering of nonprofiteers and do-gooders and such, and it’s just about all white folks in the audience. This is a huge generalization, of course.

But this is why Mando’s videos are so compelling to me. He’s talking to the non-white people who are trying to have an effect on poverty and disparity.

In the interest of full disclosure, which is neither here nor there, I am Hispanic, from San Antonio, third generation Texican, and my husband is white. Just for whatever that means.

The important thing is to WATCH THE VIDEOS. If you do nothing else for poverty today, at least watch these videos. “Dialog!” as they say.