Friday, September 26, 2014

It's been a big week.

     It is time to dream.

     27 months ago I started working at Joel's Place.  The first year and a half were lived in crisis.  We were behind in our bills.  We were behind in our payroll.  We were way behind in our mortgage.  Money was not coming in and we were losing donors, staff and volunteers regularly.  There were two distinct moments over that period of time that we were only 6 weeks away from closing.  I actually wondered if I had been brought here to close down the organization.

     The Staff, the Board and I worked at clarifying who we are and what our mission was.  We slashed the budget down by 2/3.  We had a lot of turnover as we searched for the right mix of Board and Staff.  I did a lot of speaking in the community, writing grants, talking with donors, building partnerships, writing and praying.  A lot of praying.

     This past week saw the culmination of the efforts of the past 27 months come together in one piece of good news after another.
  • We received a grant from the Rasmusson Foundation to upgrade our security system.  That is $15,000 that will go into making this facility safer and easier to monitor.  Special thanks to Kelli and the staff, Jeff Baird from Rasmusson, Mike Setterberg, Mark Lawson and Brian Palmer for their technical expertise and input over the years.
  • We received a grant from the Murdock Foundation to fund a Fund Development Coordinator position that will work with me on grants, fundraising events, donor management and follow-up.  This is the most coveted position in the non-profit sector and will catapult us to a new level of economic viability.  A very special thanks to John Franklin from Murdock, the Board of Directors, Sarah Arnold, Black Gold and especially Chris Huffman (our Board President) for helping make this thing happen.
  • We were able to pay off our balloon payment this week.  We found a local investor who was willing to partner with us and enter into a 15 year payment agreement. This allows us to:
    • Dramatically lower our monthly expenditures
    • Pay off the balloon payment
    • Pay off our Key Bank line of credit from an event 6 years ago
    • Begin investing in an Operating Reserve.
          There are a ton of people who contributed to this effort.  Thank you to Dennis Wise (see above), Ak Rare Coins, The Alaska Mental Health Trust who gave us a principal-reduction grant which made all this possible, Andy Warwick, Arlene Koenig, Yukon Title, Arlys Westfall, the Board of Directors and the dozens of donors from this past Ramp It Up who contributed enough to make this kind of loan feasible.
  • We have come to a partnership with the Boys and Girls Club to provide dinners for them under the CACFP food program.  This is a USDA reimbursement program that will actually make our cafe profitable while feeding a lot of great kids each day.  Special thanks to the State of Alaska CACFP program, Sarah Nichols from B&G club, Jacquie Bourne, Johnnie Avakumoff and the rest of the staff who help with food preparation.
As you can see, there are a great number of people who have helped us get to where we are now.  Our auditor summed it up best when she said, "There is a distinct lack of crisis in this building.  It is a nice change."  We still have a number of things I would like to see happen, but I think I can say that we made it out of the pit.  Officially.  It is hard to believe, but I think we have arrived.  There will still be struggles and challenges and the need for creativity and miracles...but we are not in danger of closing our doors or losing our staff and supporters.  Praise God.

So now it is time to dream.  Now is the time to think about where we want to grow and what we want to develop and how to bless this community with all the abundant resources that live within these walls.  I am naturally a crisis manager, not a dreamer...but it is a hat I am willing to try on.  I welcome your thoughts, ideas, input, dreams and hopes for what Joel's Place can become.  I was not alone in getting us through crisis and I have no desire to be alone as Joel's Place matures and becomes a force in this region.

Come along.  Join us and see what comes next.

Friday, September 19, 2014

Two weeks start...now

     Allow me to tell you about my good friend Kelli.  Kelli is the Program Director here at Joel's Place.  She has done a remarkable job over the past 2 1/2 years in creating an atmosphere that is safe, welcoming and fun. She is passionate about teens having a space to call their own in order that they may have the freedom to grow and develop into strong and remarkable men and women.  She is great at juggling lots of different details and programs, dealing with teenage boys and adults, and keeping me sane when I am going a little off the deep end.

     And she is...clumsy.

     Kelli fell a few months ago.  Just walking around the Joel's Place grounds.  There were no kids or ice or skateboards flying at her.  Just her and the terrain.  She fell and tore her rotator cuff in her shoulder.  Didn't tell me about it for...oh, say a week or two.  Then kept working through the pain for another month.  Clumsy and stubborn.

     Finally the doctor took an MRI and told her she needed surgery.  And then she would need to be off work for two weeks.  And then she would need to wear a sling for a few months.  And then she would be able to do one-arm GI Jane pushups.  Kelli graciously scheduled her surgery during a time that would be most convenient for the Joel's Place staff...but here's the thing: We are facing the next two weeks without the person who keeps our house in order.

     I am not worried (much) that we will burn the place down.  My staff are really good at not doing that.  I am not worried that the kids will be ignored or the food will be raw or the bills will not be paid...although maybe I should be.  I was talking to a couple of friends this week who were looking after their kids while their wives went out for the night.  They both...BOTH...confessed that they forgot to feed their children dinner that night.  The rest of the staff and I are going to have a lot of details, both large and small, to remember while she is out...for two weeks...starting tonight.

     If you are looking for ways to help (and after reading this, I would think that you would be), here are a couple ideas:
  • You could donate some paper products: TP, Paper towels, cups, plates, printer paper, etc.  Running low on those kind of supplies is the kind of detail that the staff and I will likely miss.
  • You could donate a meal for our kids.  Kelli is our backup cook.  If our cafe manager gets sick or gets called away, she usually steps in (without complaining...much) and creates a masterpiece for the kids to eat.  I guess I am now the backup and while tonight worked (delicious spaghetti and sauce) I also had to answer 6 different phone calls while cooking.  Extra meals in our freezer would help...just in case.
  • You could volunteer for an hour, helping sweep, mop, do dishes and that sort of thing.
  • You could pray.  A lot.  Always and unceasing.  We may need it.
Thanks everyone for your encouragement and support.  Thanks to all of you who gave through Pick.Click.Give.  Your donations allow us to pay for our audit and tax preparations each year.  We are deeply grateful for all the support we receive from this community.


Kelli, the staff miss you and hope you have a good rest and a rapid recovery.



And you are never allowed to leave again.

Friday, September 12, 2014

I don't write characters that are stupid or evil

     As many of you know, I had a novel published this past spring.  If you didn't know...now you do.  It is a young adult adventure novel, pictured below.  Go buy it.  It is amazing.

     Anyway, the point of this post is not to plug my book (have you bought it yet?).  It is to talk about how I create my characters and how that reflects my views on people in general.  My book is filled with heroes and villains, right and wrong...there are no anti-heroes and very little moral ambiguity.  The temptation when writing the villain characters is to describe them as "Evil" or "Stupid" and  move on from there.  Why are they persecuting the heroes?  Simply because they are evil.  Why did the leader make such a bad decision?  He is a moron.  End of story!

     I did not take this approach...partly because I needed to add to my word count and simple characters use few words.  Mostly I did not write out stupid or evil characters is because I do not think that is how people are shaped.  Now I have worked for most of my adult life around teenagers so I am aware that people have a mean streak in them and I am also aware that some people (I am looking at you, teenage boys) will shut off their brains for long portions of their days.  But most people are not driven by a desire to be evil or a desire to be stupid.  Their motivations tend to all be about the same: how can I make my life better?  The answers can be wildly different, but that is mostly influenced by their past experiences and what kind of power they are able to exert on their environment.

     For example, my book's primary villain is King Ahab.  By the middle of the narrative he is hunting down Seers and killing the entire Order.  He is organizing manhunts and ordering the kidnapping of children and performing pagan sacrifices...leading his people to ruin.  No one is born that way.  No one is a child who says, "I want to be the most evil king ever!"  People are hungry to be loved, hungry to be accepted, hungry to be successful, hungry to feel at peace with themselves.  What they learn as children, what they have reinforced as they grow older, is that they have to fight for those things...they have to strive for those things...the world is constantly trying to take those things away and leave them alone and battered.  So they develop coping strategies.  Some cope through humor.  Some cope through apathy.  Some cope through overpowering others before they can be overpowered.  Some cope through work or relationships or food or drugs.  Ahab came to a position of power and wanted to go down in the history books as the greatest king ever.  So he entered into political alliances that required certain compromises.  He created enemies of those who would question his choices, tarnishing his legacy.  His goal remained the same but it kept slipping further and further away.  Every action, every choice dictated his next bad idea as his actions becoming increasingly violent and despicable. 

     I watch the kids who come through Joel's Place.  I watch the kids who attend school with my children.  I don't see evil.  I don't see stupid.  I see desperate to be loved.  I see terrified to be abandoned.  I see lashing out from insecurity.  I see degrading others in a vain attempt to finally belong.  I see wild eyes, looking for somewhere that is safe. 

     I see Joel's Place offering these young people a different alternative.  You need not be an outcast here.  You need not squash others in order to be respected here.  You need not be afraid to fall and fail here.  This facility was designed to be kid proof.  We can fix whatever they can break.  Similarly, we are helping our youth to be world-proof.  Whatever the world tries to take or crush, we reinforce within them the truth: 
You are not evil
You are not stupid 
You are loved and accepted
You can be successful and you can find peace