CONTENTS
Doing Good • SPRING 2014 • VOL. 20, NO. 01
“Service is our watchword, and there is no reward equal to that of doing the most good to the most people in the most need” _Evangeline Booth
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03 My Corner 04 Interact 05 Perspective News Bites_ 06 World 07 Culture 08 Faith 09 Work Interview_ 10 Derek Engoy
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Ideas_ 13 Inspiration 14 Initiative 16 First person Features_ 18 A history of social service 22 Back in business 25 Project Fight 26 A run toward recovery 30 Welcome home 34 Jail alternatives 36 As American family changes, mission to help remains 39 Review 40 Resources
THE HOLISTIC MINISTRY OF THE SALVATION ARMY SPRING 2014, VOL. 20, NO. 01 ISSN 2164-5922
Caring is published quarterly by The Salvation Army and seeks to: RECLAIM ‘ACTS OF MERCY’ as imperatives to holiness. BRING THE ARMY’S MINISTRIES of evangelistic and social outreach into one holistic ministry. DESCRIBE EXEMPLARY PROGRAMS seeking to integrate the goals of the Army’s holistic ministries. FOSTER INNOVATION and the development of creative approaches to ministry. EDIFY, ENLIGHTEN, ENRICH AND STIMULATE DISCUSSION among Salvationists involved in caring ministries. PROVIDE A FORUM FOR EXAMINATION of critical social issues within the Army. REPORT ON IMPORTANT AND RELEVANT RESEARCH in areas of holistic ministry. REVIEW CRITICAL CONTRIBUTIONS OF SCHOLARS AND WRITERS within relevant fields of ministry. EXAMINE THE SALVATION ARMY AS AN ORGANIZATION in respect to its history, purpose, mission and future. STAFF
Editor in Chief/Robert Docter, Ph.D. bob.docter@usw.salvationarmy.org Managing Editor/Christin Davis christin.davis@usw.salvationarmy.org Assistant Editor/Erica Andrews erica.andrews@usw.salvationarmy.org Associate Editor/Jared McKiernan jared.mckiernan@usw.salvationarmy.org Editorial Assistant/Vivian Gatica vivian.gatica@usw.salvationarmy.org Web Editor/Shannon Forrey shannon.forrey@usw.salvationarmy.org Intern/Diana Sanglab diana.sanglab@usw.salvationarmy.org
CONTRIBUTING EDITORS
Major Darryl Leedom/USA National Headquarters Maribeth Swanson/USA Central Territory Major Claranne Meitrott/USA Eastern Territory Major Howard Bratcher/USA Southern Territory Major Lawrence Shiroma/USA Western Territory
LAYOUT & DESIGN
Art Director/Kevin Dobruck kevin.dobruck@usw.salvationarmy.org Graphic Designer/Adriana Rivera adriana.rivera@usw.salvationarmy.org
ADVERTISING
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CIRCULATION
Circulation Manager/Arlene DeJesus arlene.dejesus@usw.salvationarmy.org 562-491-8343 SALVATION ARMY USA WESTERN TERRITORIAL HEADQUARTERS Territorial Commander/Commissioner James Knaggs Chief Secretary/Colonel Dave Hudson 180 E. Ocean Blvd., Fl. 4 / PO Box 22646 Long Beach, CA 90802 562/491-9723 caring@usw.salvationarmy.org caringmagazine @caringmagazine caringmagazine caringmagazine
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Unless otherwise indicated, all contents copyright© 2014 by New Frontier Publications, The Salvation Army, USA Western Territory, 180 E. Ocean Blvd., Long Beach, CA 90802 USA. If requested, permission to reproduce is usually freely granted. Please contact the publisher before reproducing.
MY CORNER
Compassionate relationships By Robert Docter
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’ve heard it said that The Salvation Army is “compassion in action.” I think it fits and makes a good slogan. I hope it’s still true. I worry about that. I also hope it’s part of officer training along with regular workshop updates in the field. Relating compassionately is a very delicate idea that demands empathy and appropriate action. The prefix com means “with.” The root passion means “any strong feeling or emotion,” from love to hate, affection to anger, grief to joy. Putting them together, we might interpret compassion as action connected to any strong feeling. Not so. To define compassion requires much greater specificity. Its initial focus begins with an identifiable type of feeling of deep sympathy and sorrow for another who is stricken by suffering or misfortune, and then moves into an accompanying strong desire to alleviate the pain, according to Merriam-Webster. Compassion must be visible, caring, helping, direct, person to person, and it must be genuine. Except I am moved with compassion How dwelleth thy spirit in me? (Orsborn) Experiencing, or even communicating the empathic feeling, while helpful, becomes insufficient. True compassion demands action. It must move us. It can become our motivator. It can define us. Why is this so crucial for an Army of Salvation? Why must we ever be on guard against a slackening of sensitivity to that compassionate spirit’s call? Because it shouts our raison d’etre—our reason for being. Most of humanity senses the need for compassion and often reveals it in disastrous times. Soldiers have a higher responsibility. Soldiers need to move into action. We must sense the need and then act. We are more than members. The work, however, seems to fall to a few, and often they are
employees. Years ago, Army brigades took to the streets to be helpful to those in need. Times have changed. The world is different. The needs persist. Willingness wants organizing. I believe that true compassion requires a genuine relationship. It does not require a history, but it does demand truth. Trying to fake it implies a double message of words unmatched by true feeling. It’s a one arm hug that says “not too close.” Any accompanying words matter little. Those in helping roles often find themselves confronting compassion fatigue. It becomes evident with symptoms of hopelessness, seeming to be without pleasure in life, experiencing stress, anxiety, sleeplessness along with a pervasive negative attitude and decreasing productivity. This type of life seems saturated with vicarious trauma. The trauma of compassion fatigue often begins with burnout and its feelings of exhaustion, frustration, anger and depression. Burnout, defined as “chronic tedium,” exists, however, without trauma. Cynicism, an ugly thrust of hopelessness, often emerges alongside compassion fatigue. It brings its slant of distrust and contempt toward others into our daily relationships. It feeds on itself and once owned it grows. Awareness of it can begin the process overpowering its influence. You master the fatigue itself by valuing the individual confronting you and genuinely seeing this person as an important customer of your service. It begins with a smile and a welcoming tone, and continues through the entire time together. I hope you will enjoy the mutual feeling of compassion with whomever you help. Robert Docter, Ph. D., is the editor in chief of New Frontier Publications. Connect with Bob website: caringmagazine.org facebook.com/caringmagazine twitter @caringmagazine email: bob.docter@usw.salvationarmy.org SPRING 2014/CARING
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INTERACT
IN YOUR WORDS “JUST RECEIVED MY new edition of the Caring Magazine. Great job...again! The stories were excellent and the layout absolutely beautiful! I’ve always said that excellence is paying attention to details. You definitely get it. Loved the read!” — DENISE HAWK, DEL ORO, CALIF. Send us your thoughts, questions and concerns. We want to hear from you.
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Connect with Caring: website: caringmagazine.org facebook.com/caringmagazine twitter @caringmagazine email: caring@usw.salvationarmy.org
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PERSPECTIVE
In the service of good By Christin Davis
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Just north of the River Thames at the East end of the medieval-walled City of London, clusters of villages were at one time surrounded by farmland. Then with the construction of docks and a railway, the expanding population led to extreme overcrowding and poor conditions. “The invention about 1880 of the term ‘East End’ was rapidly taken up by the new halfpenny press, and in the pulpit and the music hall… A shabby man from Paddington, St. Marylebone or Battersea might pass muster as one of the respectable poor,” William Fishman wrote in East End 1888 (AKPress, 1998). “But the same man coming from Bethnal Green, Shadwell or Wapping was an ‘East Ender,’ the box of Keating’s bug powder must be reached for, and the spoons locked up. In the long run this cruel stigma came to do good. It was final incentive to the poorest to get out of the East End at all costs, and it became a concentrated reminder to the public conscience that nothing to be found in the East End should be tolerated in a Christian country.” As conditions worsened and waves of immigrants— French Protestant Huguenots, Irish, Ashkenazi Jews, and Bangladeshi—poured in, the area eventually caught the attention of social reformers. In the 1800s, the Association for Promoting Cleanliness among the Poor built a penny bathhouse and laundry facility, a Ragged School offered basic education to street children, and dock workers unionized and demanded a fair hourly rate. And in 1865, William Booth set up a tent and began preaching personal evangelism and practical philanthropy. He called it the Christian Revival Association, then East London Christian Mission, and finally The Salvation Army. As a preacher, Booth wasn’t only concerned with a man’s soul. He and his wife, Catherine, worked to address the social issues of late Victorian England, particularly in the East End. He was influenced by John Wesley’s belief that “The Gospel of Christ knows of no religion, but social; no holiness but social.”
The Booths opened a soup kitchen, a match factory with a safe environment and decent wages, and a bank for the poor. He spent time in the worst slums of the East End, and finally distributed a plan of social welfare. In Darkest England and the Way Out, which Booth wrote with journalist W. T. Stead in 1890, sold 200,000 copies in its first year. It explored “the Social Question” of how to deal with the poor, destitute, and unemployed. Booth wrote, “A population sodden with drink, steeped in vice, eaten up by every social and physical malady, these are the denizens of Darkest England amidst whom my life has been spent, and to whose rescue I would now summon all that is best in the manhood and womanhood of our land.” His social campaign was illustrated (Page 18), displaying the eight elements of suffering Booth aimed to address from prostitution to criminals, drink or destitution. In this issue, we’re exploring The Salvation Army’s history of social service and featuring current work that still addresses what Booth outlined in his plan. “Coupled with passionate caring, actually getting the drowning out of their difficulty has been a core value of Salvation Army social services since the beginning,” Dr. James Read, executive director of The Salvation Army Ethics Centre and senior policy analyst for the International Social Justice Commission, wrote in his exploration of the organization’s aim (Page 19). “Admittedly, the world is more complex than it was a century ago…Making a difference today is genuinely hard work.” Yet the organization has always had one goal. As Evangeline Booth wrote, “Service is our watchword, and there is no reward equal to that of doing the most good to the most people in the most need.” Christin Davis is the managing editor of New Frontier Publications. Connect with Christin website: caringmagazine.org facebook.com/caringmagazine twitter @caringmagazine email: christin.davis@usw.salvationarmy.org SPRING 2014/CARING
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BOOK REVIEW
I Beg to Differ: Navigating Difficult Conversations With Truth And Love BY KEVIN JACKSON At a point in time when civility both within and outside of the community of faith appears at an arguably all-time low, the need for resources to assist humanity in reestablishing a sense of unity within our divided world is a welcome addition. I Beg to Differ: Navigating Difficult Conversations With Truth And Love (InterVarsity Press, 2014) by Timothy Muehlhoof is not a book about conflict management. It provides solutions to improve communication between those who have severely differing world views. It’s hard to read the New Testament and come away with anything other than a call to unity. That unity may be between a person and God, within a person’s faith community or with someone who disagrees from outside your faith community. When it’s all said and done, the New Testament calls for civility. Muehlhoof presents a relatively straight-forward communication tool when folks find themselves on differing sides. Whether a simple conflict or something more significant, all too often the sides do not come to any resolution. Muehlhoof’s work offers a both thoughtful and practical faith-based guide. Based on the author’s years of personal experience and development, I Beg to Differ provides insightful strategies in a readable style. Although summary points and questions are provided at the end of each chapter, the reader should not neglect reading the text as Muehlhoof provides a cross section of illustrations and case studies helpful in teasing out the four basic principles in this book. The chapter on spiritual disciplines and the role they play in the process of conversation provides the person of faith with the key to Muehlhoof’s strategies. He weaved into his book the place of the individual’s spirituality and the pivotal role it plays in successful
communication. Many books of this type offer similar principles, but few are as clearly and concisely written or as helpful in the approach. Three case studies put his theory into practice. The examination of marital conflict, work issues, and issues with teens offer three reasonably common scenarios with practical application. Peaceful outcomes to differences of opinion are possible, and are attainable with a little work and attention to communication skills. The greatest importance provided by Muehlhoff’s work is the hope it provides for tangible outcomes. Great communication brings with it authentic relationships and unity. If these things are our goals, Muehlhoff is more than worth the read and application. Major Kevin Jackson is the New Frontier Publications associate editor for book publishing. Connect with Kevin website: caringmagazine.org facebook.com/caringmagazine twitter @caringmagazine email: kevin.jackson@usw.salvationarmy.org
Muehlhoof presents a relatively straight-forward communication tool when folks find themselves on differing sides.
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NEWSBITES
WORLD
Exceptional children The Salvation Army in Kenya has a nearly 70-year history of service to disabled persons, particularly children who are often rejected by their families and communities and unable to attend school. The Kenya Demographic and Health Survey estimates that more than 10 percent of the nation’s population is mentally or physically disabled. Last December, the Kenya West Territory held its first International Day of Persons with Disabilities celebration with 389 students from 10 Salvation Army schools and three units at Joyland Secondary School in Kisumu. “This is our time to shine and to show that it is not our disability that should matter, but our abilities, for we have been blessed with many,” said the day’s emcee, Peter Otieno, who is physically disabled. “Today no one is excluded, but all are included because we are all God’s children. He has a plan for each one of us, and Scripture says, “Through God all things are possible.”
Beating the odds Cancer survivor Janette Murray-Wakelin, 64, and her 68-yearold partner, Alan Murray, ran a marathon every single day of the year in 2013 as part of their project, Running Raw Around Australia. The journey went beyond a personal challenge. As a breast cancer survivor, Janette wanted to be a source of inspiration and motivation for others. In total, they ran 366 marathons in 366 days— a world record for the most consecutive marathons. 6
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POLIO-FREE India has gone three years without a single case of wild poliovirus, which means it’s now officially considered “polio-free.” Just five years ago, India was home to nearly half of the world’s new polio cases, a result of the country’s population density, poor sanitation and high birth rate (27 million new children are born each year). This victory for India stimulated the global community to commit to achieving a polio-free world by 2018. Only three more countries—Afghanistan, Nigeria and Pakistan—need to eradicate the disease.
MAPPING SOCIAL GOOD To help gauge progress in social enterprise, social innovation and social change, a team of developers, led by Igniter Founder Michael Lewkowitz and Venture Director Renjie Butalid are prototyping a digital platform using open source software to map the social change space on a global scale. “We’re building a tool where community organizations, policy advocates—anyone doing work in the social change space—can reference empirical data of what their community looks like in the form of a map,” Butalid told Urban Matters. “The social process changes the way we see our-
selves within the context of our community and our capacity to effect change. In turn, mapping also influences how the community sees and engages with us.” See more at socialsca.pe.
Malaria deaths hit new low The death rate from malaria dropped by 45 percent globally between 2000 and 2012, according to the World Health Organization. In Africa, the rate fell by almost half.
CULTURE
NEWSBITES
FIRST PRISON GARDEN Change the world
Planting Justice, based in Oakland, Calif., works with communities to build urban gardens and create jobs in sustainable food production. Now, it’s also behind bars. In late 2013, Planting Justice facilitated a gardening project at the San Quentin State Prison outside San Francisco. Inmates constructed five raised beds for vegetables in the prison yard, creating the first-ever vegetable garden inside a California state prison. Planting Justice also hired 10 former inmates to do landscaping work for an entry-level wage of $17.50 per hour.
Choice coding Homeless and down on his luck, Leo Grand stood face-to-face with a total stranger who made an unusual proposition: take $100 or learn to code javascript. Grand chose the latter, and it paid dividends. “I can go through $100 in a few days,” Grand said. “But he told me I could have a laptop and learn how to do something and I figured it could turn into something more. It’s not like I don’t have the time to learn to do it.” That stranger, Patrick McConlogue, visited Grand each day for an hour and taught him to code using a Google Chromebook and three coding manuals. When Grand mentioned that he had a passion for climate change, McConlogue challenged him
to devise a plan to make an impact through it. Grand developed Trees for Cars, an app that notifies you of other people in the area in need of a ride to a common destination and then calculates the amount of CO2 saved by the carpool. Trees for Cars is available on iTunes and Google Play for 99 cents, and Grand earns the proceeds.
Wesleyan University partnered with 92nd Street Y to launch a free online course called “How to Change the World.” “Our aim is simple and bold,” said Wesleyan President Michael Roth, who will lead the course. “To put together the facts, the energy and the actions to make a real difference in addressing some of the major problems confronting the world today.”
Drive Change When teacher Jordyn Lexton saw many of her paroled students return to prison, she and entrepreneur Annie Bickerton founded Drive Change. The social enterprise is opening food trucks in New York City and hiring formerly incarcerated kids to operate them.
More Americans than ever using food stamps The U.S. Department of Agriculture reported that 47.7 million Americans are receiving food stamps. That’s more than the entire populations of Canada, Argentina or Sudan. SPRING 2014/CARING
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NEWSBITES
FAITH
Life’s end A New Mexico judge ruled in January that terminally ill, mentally competent patients have the right to get a doctor to end their lives. The decision could make New Mexico the fifth state— along with Oregon, Washington, Montana and Vermont—to allow doctors to prescribe fatal prescriptions to terminal patients. The state’s Attorney General’s office said it would analyze the decision to see if it would file an appeal.
MALAY LANGUAGE After a controversial Malaysian court ruling in 2013 prohibited a Catholic newspaper, The Herald, from using the word “Allah,” religious authorities used it as justification to raid a Bible Society and confiscate over 300 Malay-language Bibles on the basis that public disorder would ensue unless the term “Allah” remains exclusive to Islam.
“Most Admired Man” Billy Graham tied Bill Clinton for third place on Gallup’s “Most Admired Man” list of 2013. President Barack Obama placed No. 1 for the sixth consecutive year. Rounding out the top 10 : Bill Gates, Clint Eastwood, Ron Paul, Ted Cruz, Mitt Romney, and Jimmy Carter.
Popular verse YouVersion, a popular Bible app, was installed 49 million times in the U.S. in 2013 and users shared 68 million Bible verses through it. “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me” (Phil. 4:13) topped the list of most bookmarked, highlighted and shared, followed by Isaiah 40:31, Matthew 6:13, Joshua 1:9, and Philippians 4:6. 8
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Ex-pastor tries atheism Former pastor Ryan Bell vowed to live without God for one year in an experiment to “enter the world of atheism and live, for a year, as an atheist.” The former Seventh-Day Adventist pastor and professor at two Christian universities said he will refrain from praying and reading the Bible until the end of 2014. Instead, he will read atheist authors, attend atheist gatherings and associate primarily with non-believers. Bell said he is not an atheist, “at least not yet,” he wrote in an essay for The Huffington Post. “I am not sure what I am. That’s part of what this year is about.”
WORK
NEWSBITES
PEACE OF MIND The Salvation Army Bell Shelter in Bell, Calif., houses 350 homeless men and women, 100 of whom are veterans. This got the attention of Carol Kelson and Ben Miller, founders of Advance Neurofeedback, who wanted to conduct a neurofeedback study on veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). According to Miller—who now volunteers at Bell Shelter as neurofeedback coordinator—the process measures the electricity within the brain via electrodes affixed to the head of the patient. The measurements are displayed through video and sound, showing the brain what it is doing and teaching it to selfregulate when it is not functioning properly. The electrodes are intentionally placed at the sites that trigger PTSD symptoms for the individual, said Paul Wager, clinical director at Bell Shelter. When the brain recognizes those sites are not functioning correctly, it learns to correct itself, reducing the symptoms. Twenty veterans are now receiving treatment through the neurofeedback program at Bell Shelter as part of a nationwide movement organized by nonprofit Homecoming for Veterans to offer free neurofeedback to veterans. Wager hopes to be able to expand the program with Miller, and be able to treat all people at Bell Shelter who need it.
REACH For some, paying utility bills is a monthly headache. Through the Relief for Energy Assistance through Community Help (REACH) program, The Salvation Army offers one-time grants of up to $200 to low-income households in danger of having their power shut off. Based in San Francisco, REACH is funded by PG&E to service areas from the Oregon border to Santa Maria, Calif., spanning across the Golden State, Del Oro and Southern California divisions. Since its launch, REACH has disbursed more than $105 million to more than 600,000 households through 170 Salvation Army service centers, making it the largest single-utility-funded assistance program in the country.
BRIDGING THE GAP There are an estimated 1.6 billion Muslims around the world, making Islam the world’s second-largest religious tradition after Christianity, according to Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion & Public Life. Armed with this knowledge, Samy Tanagho is working to bring Muslims to Christ. The Salvation Army Western Territory recently contracted with the former Egyptian lawyer to provide training on reaching Muslims with the gospel, ways to minister in cross-cultural situations, and provide Arabic translation.
ARC recycles e-waste Electronics Recycler International recycles 25 million pounds of television sets, computers or other e-waste each month—10 percent of which comes from the Western Territory Adult Rehabilitation Center (ARC) Command. Last year, the command’s e-waste recycling efforts generated nearly $1.85 million in the Western Territory and kept 12 million pounds of electronics out of landfills—in addition to the 85 million pounds of other waste recycled by the territory. “The money we generate in California is important as it helps defray the costs of ARC operation in states where they are unable to earn any income from their e-waste recycling,” said Major Mark Nelson, ARC Command general secretary. SPRING 2014/CARING
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INTERVIEW
Immersive leadership BY ERICA ANDREWS
DEREK ENGOY,
the soft-spoken poet, pastor and nonprofit advocate seems nervous when I first meet him. Dressed in a gray fedora, navy blue buttoned shirt and jeans he drinks his coffee and we make small talk. Engoy explains he used to be a journalist, which describes some of his unease. He’s used to conducting the interview, not being in the line of questioning. Engoy grew up Catholic in a traditional Filipino family where he said, “You’re either destined to be a nurse or an engineer.” He went against this norm and chose journalism with a creative writing minor. During college he became disenchanted with Catholicism and began a quest to learn more about religion, which ultimately led him to Christianity. With a new sense of purpose, Engoy is using his talents to help plant churches. Currently he’s a pastor at New Life in Harbor City, Calif., and works with nonprofits Just One (raising awareness for injustice) and The Freeze Project (human trafficking awareness). Engoy has also penned three books and does spoken word on the weekends. Caring got Engoy to slow down long enough to tell us about his journey and new venture—planting a church called The Branch in Long Beach, Calif. What was your religious experience like? I grew up Catholic, but I was never committed to
the faith. When I turned 18, my parents said, ‘you’re an adult now; you can choose.’ So I went to a protestant church and I was blown away with the fact there was live instruments in a church. Growing up in a church background, it was all vocal, no instruments, and so I think my experience in the Protestant church with Jesus was solely based on music. Most surface things immediately tapered because it was superficial, so when I got into college I left Jesus. I left the faith all together and I explored different religions. I spent a lot of time with Rastas and a good amount of time with Muslims and Buddhists. I developed an appreciation for the diversity of different faith expressions, but for me there was something about Jesus that kept coming up in my study of different religions and piqued my interest. As I got a little bit older, I came to a point in my life where I decided if I’m going to claim a religion then it’s time to get serious about choosing and because Jesus seemed to be the thread in most of the major religions, I decided to come back to the protestant side of things. Exploring Jesus for who he was, not who Christianity said he was. What were your next steps after that realization? I decided to go to this church in Norwalk, Calif., and it was the same kind of experience when I first went into a Protestant practice; the music was great. In 2003, the son of the senior pastor was going to plant a church and he asked me to come. I went along on the journey and he asked me to do youth ministry and I was ordained through the process. What made you choose Long Beach as your new site for The Branch? Growing up in Long Beach and going to Cal State Long Beach, the culture just never left me. I’m always here. So every time I would drive through, I just felt this tug. Call it the Holy Spirit or common sense, but it was the only place that made sense. There are currently 250 Protestant churches in Long Beach alone and they’re doing great things, so our approach isn’t to come and do what they’re doing better. I want to develop relaSPRING 2014/CARING
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interacting with folks, she could tell we’re not trying to funnel them or cattle them into a Sunday service. She could tell we authentically care about these people. In fact, while I was there, I was talking to an agnostic and he was telling me how much he hates church. He had a bad experience and unfortunately that dictated his relationship with Jesus, which is unfortunate because that’s many people’s stories. We engaged in this conversation and I told him the heart of what we were trying to build and he was really excited to hear this idea of just building community. He said when we start he’d love to be apart of it. If I would’ve approached him saying we were starting a church and to come to our services, I don’t think he would’ve given me the time of day. tionships with a lot of great pastors in Long Beach. How will The Branch be different from other churches? We’re not here to create massive churches; we’re first here to immerse ourselves in the culture of Long Beach. Instead of saying, ‘hey, we’re going to plant a church and you conform to us,’ we want to get to know you first. We want to get to know Long Beach, we want to fall in love with the city, we want to fall in love with the people and minister that way, versus saying come here on Sunday this is how you need to be. Don’t get me wrong, we’re still going to have our Sunday service, but that’s not going to be our main service. I did production for awhile for churches after youth ministry and my entire job was solely to do Sunday morning well and create this attraction experience so that people would come. You’re talking about spending a lot of money on lighting and just the production side of church. Not to say that’s wrong, I think God uses it, but I’m done spending a lot of energy on that and I’d rather invest in relationships and rather invest in building community. In what ways do you immerse yourself in the community? We do things like Laundry Love, where we just go into the community and not only do we provide funds for free laundry, we’re there to build relationships with people. When we began going to the laundromat, Spin Cycle, the manager there was very suspicious of us at first. She told me there had been many other groups, who were doing what we’re doing, but they come in once and then she’d never see them again. She said when we came the next month and the next month and saw us 12
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You became a friend to him first. Yeah and I look at Jesus as well, he was about immersing himself in the culture and was known as a friend of sinners. I think many times we create this divide as Christians and we’ve become more known for what we’re against than what we’re for. We’re not trying to create anything new we’re just saying, ‘hey, we’re here; how can we partner with what’s already going on.’ In the network of pastors I got to know, I’m asking them how can we help them as a new church. We’re here to help people. What is your ultimate hope for The Branch? I ultimately want to share the story of Jesus with everyone. I think there’s a side to him that other people don’t realize that’s been masked by our Christian practice. In fact one of our vision statement is ultimately to create multiple environments where we can share the story of Jesus wherever we go. So my hope is to see that people who are apart of our community aren’t afraid to talk about him and live that way. Our mission is to love, learn and live. Erica Andrews is the assistant editor of Caring. Connect with Erica website caringmagazine.org facebook.com/caringmagazine twitter @caringmagazine email: erica.andrews@usw.salvationarmy.org Photos by Erica Andrews and Nannette Ricaforte
IDEAS INSPIRATION
Sydney residents fill up their grocery bags for $15.
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alk into Sydney’s Food 4 Life Market and something might confuse you: None of the products have price tags. That’s because customers always pay the same price for all of their groceries––just $15. The Salvation Army in Australia opened the Food 4 Life Market in the Sydney suburb of Busby in August 2013 to offer a lifeline to those in the community facing food insecurity. Residents of the local postal code can register for a free membership to the market, which earns them a complimentary Salvation Army reusable shopping bag and a voucher to fill one full bag of groceries each week for a fixed price of $15. According to Store Manager Joel Spicer, a full bag of groceries is worth approximately $60. “Many residents in the area have a lack of access to healthy, quality and affordable food partially due to the increasing costs of living,” Spicer said. “Parents often skip meals to feed their kids. The market gives residents the integrity of going out in public and selecting what they want themselves.” The Salvation Army opened the first Food 4 Life Market in Warwick Farm, a suburb of the greater Liverpool area, in July 2009. Paul Lynch, member of the New South Wales Legislative Assembly, assessed more than $100,000 to the Food 4 Life Market as part of the Community Building Partnership Program. He estimated that 12 percent of all residents in this area suffer with some level of food insecurity. Many are in public housing, single parents, or struggling with drug and alcohol abuse, according to Spicer. Stocked with fresh fruits and vegetables, meat, bread, milk and a plethora of nutritious options, the market has helped many residents like Ema, 31. A single mother of four kids, all under the age of 9, she discovered the market at a community event. “Without the Food 4 Life Market, I would not be able to keep my family functioning,” she said. “Now I do not have to stress and worry where my next meal is going to come from or how I am going to feed my kids.” Samantha, 30, is also a single mother. Since she began volunteering at Food 4 Life, she accepted Christ into her life. She feels she is now starting to fulfill the plan and
purpose he has for her life. “I love chatting [with] people and helping people by listening to the issues they have in their lives,” she said. “I love servicing the community by providing a place where families can come to receive assistance. This gives a huge helping hand.” The Food 4 Life Market is also equipped with an adjacent café area, where customers can sit for a complimentary cup of coffee and fellowship with other customers and store volunteers. “This café area provides a space where local residents can make new friends, build relationships and just have a chat with someone in a safe and welcoming environment,” Spicer said. “This creates a great sense of community and belonging.” John, 55, is the most experienced volunteer at Food 4 Life and like an assistant manager, according to Spicer. He said he likes that customers can shop for a reasonable price so they can save money to pay bills or do something nice. He said, “I like seeing customers going out happy with a full bag.” Connect with mySalvos website: my.salvos.org.au/ facebook.com/mysalvos twitter: @mysalvos SPRING 2014/CARING
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IDEAS INITIATIVE
LSTN Headphones plugs into the ‘one-for-one’ movement to support the Starkey Hearing Foundation. BY JARED McKIERNAN
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ridget Hilton doesn’t go a day without music in her life. The raw energy of live shows, the soft hiss of vinyl on a record player, the soul and grit of rock ‘n’ roll––it’s all second nature to her. Growing up in Flint, Mich., she wrote album reviews for her local newspaper and worked for concert venues and retailers––any chance she could get to be around music. An upstart teenager, she wedged herself into the prestigious Universal Music Group. After a few years, she worked her way up to a marketing executive, collaborating with some of the top artists in the music industry, including Taylor Swift and Kanye West. Her hard work and hustle were paying dividends. Though happily settled into her career, Hilton found herself increasingly drawn to charity. Then she learned about the Starkey Hearing Foundation and its quest to restore hearing in the 275 million people worldwide who struggle with hearing impairment. “Music and charity are my two passions,” she said. “When I heard about Starkey I thought, ‘This is the most amazing thing ever.’ I saw all of these videos of people hearing for the first time and it was so inspiring. I’m such a music fan that I can’t imagine never having heard music before.” Hilton merged her two passions. The result: LSTN Headphones, a social enterprise that sells vintageinspired headphones to benefit the Starkey Hearing Foundation. Inspired by ‘one-for-one’ businesses, each pair of LSTN Headphones sold helps restore hearing to someone in need––a twist on the ‘one-for-one’ trend–– or as Hilton calls it: “Giving Back. Amplified.” LSTN Headphones are also handcrafted with reclaimed wood from furniture and flooring manufacturers, giving them another dimension of social consciousness. “I love Toms, Warby Parker, Krochet Kids,” Hilton said. “I wanted to do something related to hearing so naturally, headphones was an obvious choice. It’s working out well for us and people really gravitate toward it.” 14
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LSTN, hear
The Starkey Hearing Foundation provides 100,000 hearing aids to people in need around the world each year, allowing many to hear for the first time. To date, Starkey has given hearing aids in more than 120 countries. In August 2012, Hilton launched LSTN’s website with pictures and prototypes. The following month, LSTN was featured on The Today Show before it had manufactured any products. “We were getting all of these orders, but we didn’t have any products,” she said. “It was exciting but it was kind of crazy.” In January 2013, she officially left her corporate cocoon for the sink-or-swim ranks of entrepreneurism, perhaps inevitably. “When I was like 11, I was selling candy bars at bowling alleys to make money,” she laughed. “I actually made enough to go to Europe. I’ve always had the entrepreneur bug in me.” With momentum mounting, Hilton brought in friend and seasoned businessman Joe Huff to help run things. Huff shared Hilton’s vision from the first time they spoke and believes it’s the type of idea that could put social enterprise “on the map.” “She really had the billion-dollar idea,” he said. “For me, it really became,
95% OF CHILDREN in deaf schools worldwide can be helped with just a hearing aid, which would allow many of them to attend regular schools.
‘How do we make social enterprise the coolest thing ever?’ And it really sunk in that [LSTN] is music, and there’s really nothing cooler than music.” Following LSTN’s official launch in April 2013, Huff and Hilton went to Peru with Starkey for two weeks late in 2013 to help fit 10,000 people for hearing aids. “It was amazing,” Hilton said of the trip. “Some of those kids have never heard anything in their lives so you literally see them hear for the first time.” In 2012 alone, Starkey fitted more than 131,000 people for hearing aids, surpassing its Clinton Global Initiative commitment of fitting 100,000 hearing aids annually. At this rate, Starkey is 25 percent ahead of schedule for fitting 1 million people this decade. “[Starkey is] not just dropping the hearing aids off and leaving,” Hilton said. “They’re there talking to the people and seeing who really needs them, and afterwards they stay. They follow up with the patients...We’re a small partner of theirs, but we’re trying to help as much as we can and hoping we’ll grow with them.” Outside of its alliance with Starkey, LSTN has also struck up an impressive short list of retail and subscription-based partners, including Whole Foods, Urban Outfitters and Spotify. Last fall, LSTN was added to the Toms Marketplace, an online store Toms launched in November 2013 to help other businesses with a social purpose. The online store features more than 200 products from about 30 companies and charities. “We didn’t just want to start another headphone company,” Huff said. “Our goal was to start a business that could change the world through the power of music.” In her spare time Hilton lectures at UCLA and USC, but these days, being at the helm of one of the most rapidly emerging social enterprises consumes the lot of her waking hours. “I don’t have the same lifestyle as I might have when I was working [at Universal], but the long term is going to be way more worth it,” Hilton said. “The reason why we started this company is to help people.”
Left: A deaf girl hears for the first time, Above: Joe Huff and Bridget Hilton, Below: LSTN headphones
Our goal was to start a business that could change the world through the power of music. —JOE HUFF
Jared McKiernan is an associate editor for New Frontier Publications. Connect with Jared web: caringmagazine.org facebook.com/caring twitter @caringmagazine email: jared.mckiernan@usw.salvationarmy.org Photos courtesy of LSTN See more at lstnheadphones.com SPRING 2014/CARING
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IDEAS FIRST PERSON
Addict to attorney With nowhere to go but The Salvation Army, Tracy Hughes makes the most of his recovery. BY TRACY HUGHES
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y mother and father were divorced when I was very young. I was raised by my mother. Life was normal until the age of 12, when my mother started using drugs. She became more concerned with supporting her addiction than paying the rent, utilities and buying food. I too started using drugs at the age of 13. Shortly after, my mother was sentenced to multiple years in a women’s state prison as the result of her drug use. I was sent to live with my father, who had never been a part of my life. My main concern was getting friends, and the first group to accept me was the party crowd. Over the next few years I went to a lot of parties and for a while, it seemed fun. However, my addiction progressed rapidly. At the age of 21, I relapsed out of two inpatient treatment programs. My life had become completely unmanageable due to drugs and alcohol. I was no longer able to provide myself with food, clothing and shelter. I was living on the streets, sleeping on park benches and in stairwells and only eating by the grace of the local shelter that provided breakfast and lunch to the homeless. At 29, I was living at a park in Pasadena. I lived there for several years, having given up on recovery. I accepted the fact that I would never get off the streets. I had lost all hope. As winter was approaching, I checked into the Pasadena Salvation Army Adult Rehabilitation Center (ARC), not for recovery, but to get 16
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out of the cold. About two months after my arrival I became upset with some staff decisions and announced I would be leaving the program. I stormed up to my room and began to pack my things. Then God gave me a moment of clarity. I realized as I was packing that I had nowhere to go. I had always been apprehensive about turning my will and life over to the care of God as I was not sure what he was going to do with me. What I wanted was to see God’s plan for my life so I could make changes and suggestions as appropriate. But now I had reached the end. Even though I did not know what would happen if I stayed, I knew that if I left I would likely never return from a life of homelessness and addiction. I got on my knees and told God that it no longer mattered what he did with my life as it could not be any worse than what I had done with it. With this surrender, I stayed at the ARC and completed the six-month program in April 1995. The well-rounded program of worship, work therapy, addiction therapy, counseling, fellowship, and the 12 steps prepared me for a life outside of treatment. As I accumulated time sober, God’s plan for my life began to unfold. After a year, I met the woman who would become my wife. In April 2014, we will celebrate our 15-year wedding anniversary. A few years into our marriage, we bought a house. At five years sober I enrolled in college, and for the next five years I went to work during the day
and school at night to earn a bachelor’s degree in business administration. While in college I thought about attending law school. But, I thought that there must be something that prevents people like me from becoming a lawyer. I did some research but found no obstacles. I prayed that I would do the footwork and leave the results to him, and the doors opened. For the next four years I worked during the day and went to law school in the evening. I graduated magna cum laude, passed the State Bar of California exam on my first attempt, and was sworn in to practice law. Of course, I am grateful to God for allowing me to have such a wonderful career, but I know that my purpose in life is much more than being an attorney. My life today is dedicated to building my relationship with Jesus Christ, a major part of which is giving back to The Salvation Army. I made a commitment several years ago at the Pasadena ARC to lead a group each Wednesday night that introduces the new beneficiaries to the 12 steps. In addition, another
gentleman and I give a weekend 12-step seminar two times each year at the ARC. And aat any given time I sponsor two to three men. Besides my work with The Salvation Army, I participate in a jail ministry called PRISM. One or two times each month my wife and I lead a Sunday church service for one of the units at the Twin Towers Los Angeles County jail facility. On that day at the ARC when I finally turned my will and my life over to the care of God, if I had written down the life I wanted in 19 years, I would not have even come close to the life I have today. I guess that is why God did not give me a plan or proposal for my review. He knew that his will for me was greater than anything I could have imagined.
Connect with Tracy email: tracy1845@aol.com Photo by John Docter SPRING 2014/CARING
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A HISTORY OF SOCIAL SERVICE It is not just the ideas that define the organization, but the character of those involved that matters. BY JAMES E. READ According to Forbes, The Salvation Army in the U.S. received more donations than any other charity except United Way in 2013. In Canada, The Salvation Army proudly announces that it is the single largest private provider of social services in the country. Similar stories could be told elsewhere in the “more developed world.” Salvation Army social services are big. But big or small, we should want to know why they exist at all. What values root Salvation Army social services? What
aspirations move them forward? Socrates said the unexamined life is not worth living. I think that applies to organizations as well as individuals. There is no reason to be big if you don’t stand for something. In Origins of the Salvation Army, historian Norman Murdoch made waves by claiming that social services work was first taken up primarily as a tactic for organizational survival. “It was the Army’s failure to grow as a revivalist sect…that turned it in the direction of social service,” he wrote. Other historians have disagreed. In their book Boundless Salvation: The Shorter Writings of William Booth, Andrew Eason and Roger Green show that the first social services actually started before The Salvation Army changed its name from The Christian Mission. “While the chief object and aim of the Christian Mission is to bring sinners to Jesus,” one of the Mis-
This lithographically printed illustration (page 18) was folded and tipped-in on the facing title page of Founder William Booth’s In Darkest England and the Way Out (1890, London: International Headquarters of The Salvation Army). The book, which sold 200,000 copies in its first year, explored “the Social Question” of how to deal with the poor, destitute, and unemployed, ghost-written by William Stead, editor of the Pall Mall Gazette. In this image, the story is provided on one page. The 312-word caption explains that it is “intended to give a birdseye-view of the Scheme described in this book, and the results expected from its realization.” It aids the book’s argument: “A population sodden with drink, steeped in vice, eaten up by every social and physical malady, these are the denizens of Darkest England amidst whom my life has been spent, and to whose rescue I would now summon all that is best in the manhood and womanhood of our land.”
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“Coupled with passionate caring actually getting the drowning out of their difficulty has been a core value of Salvation Army social services since the beginning.”
sioners said, “we feel it a duty and a privilege to minister to the bodily wants of the [poor].” What really caused The Salvation Army’s social services to swamp the efforts of thousands of other well-meaning Christian charities in late-19th century England was two fold, according to Green. First, the organizational capacity shown by Salvation Army “pilot projects” proved that it could deliver if entrusted with a bigger task. Second, was the emergence of a theology that refused to separate welfare of an eternal soul from that soul’s temporal well-being. To be concerned about whether someone would get to heaven, you had to be concerned about how they fared in this world. In a breakthrough article published in 1889, William Booth said, “[salvation] meant not only [being] saved from the miseries of the future world, but from the miseries of this [world] also.” I like the way Professor Ed McKinley put it. In Marching to Glory:The History of The Salvation Army in the United States, 1880-1992, he said, “it was inevitable that an organization… propagating a gospel of universal love…would be drawn to recognize one supreme fact: there is no true religion that is 20
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not acted out in compassion…The gospel message must be accompanied by expressions of love so unmistakable that no potential convert could miss them; then only would the good news of God’s grace seem real….It was only half enough to declare that God is love: The Salvation Army would show that He was.” It is not just the ideas that define the organization, but the character of the people who make it up that matters. I don’t think we can understand William Booth and our other forebears without grasping this fact. I remember a sociology professor asking me when I was an undergraduate at Glendon College in Toronto if I had read In Darkest England and the Way Out. Embarrassed, I said no. He chastised me, “One of the first great books in sociology!” He was right. But it’s not the time-bound programmatics of the book or its methodology that explain why William Booth wrote it. It was his passion—his absolute outrage at the indifference to the degradation of another human being and the injustices experienced by those without social power—that drove him. “Who cares?” he thundered. “All over Christendom thousands of little children
are being brought up in actual training for crime….Who cares?” The infographic at the center of “Darkest England” tries to capture this passion. It pictures crowds of people drowning in a churning sea, there on account of myriad social and spiritual problems of their own and others’ making, and while some people stand on the shore as unconcerned onlookers, others are in the water pulling the drowning to safety. Coupled with passionate caring, actually getting the drowning out of their difficulty (what we might now call outcomes effectiveness) has been a core value of Salvation Army social services since the beginning. Passion without results is thought to be almost as bad as indifference to results. Which is what led Evangeline Booth to write the words from which the recent U.S. corporate tagline has been culled: “service is our watchword, and there is no reward equal to that of doing the most good to the most people in the most need.” Admittedly, the world is more complex than it was a century ago. And The Salvation Army social services are infinitely more sophisticated than they were a century ago. It may have been easy for Evangeline Booth to figure out what was maximally good for people she had in mind, and easy for her to see what “interventions” would be sustainably effective. But none of that is easy today. Making a difference today is genuinely hard work. And doing the work ethically—that is, in a deliberately principled and mindful way—is part of what is hard about it. What, we must ask, is the good we are supposed to be doing the “most” of, anyway? Is it good in the eyes of the recipient as
well as the agent? What and who gives us the authority to act at all? Are we using the right means as well as aiming at the right end? Etcetera. These questions must be asked. Not only by the organization. Each of us is a moral agent too. One might fear getting bogged down in analysis, but that doesn’t have to happen. And the alternative of simply acting without thinking is to act without ethics. Wouldn’t it be great if future generations could say about us what Professor McKinley said about the early-day Salvation Army? Giving his professional historian’s interpretation of what (and who) made them tick, he said, “They are set apart from their fellows not by unnatural saintliness…They are allowing God to endow their lives with the only meaning those lives will ever have, to be in their brief day on earth the embodiment of the supreme truth that Christianity is love in action, and to be in eternity, products of that love.”
James E. Read, Ph.D. is the executive director of The Salvation Army Ethics Centre and senior policy analyst for the International Social Justice Commission. Connect with James website: salvationarmyethics.org twitter @salarmyethics email: james_read@can.salvationarmy.org SPRING 2014/CARING
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BACK IN BUSINESS BACK IN BUSINESS BACK IN BUSINESS 22
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The Salvation Army helps men get back to work while keeping its property in prime condition. BYJARED McKIERNAN
Jerry Ernst was sitting
pretty, making a cool $140,000 a year in retail management. All the while, he was battling an addiction to methamphetamines. Eventually, his addiction caught up with him and he landed in prison. Ernst is now 46 and out of prison. The six-figure salary is gone. He’s living in a homeless shelter, making a fraction of what he used to. And that’s okay with him. Because for the first time in his life, he’s working full time while staying sober, something he credits to Socially Responsible Landscape Management––an initiative launched by The Salvation Army in Dallas. In 2010, The Salvation Army Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex Command discovered it was spending a substantial amount of money on paying an outside contractor to maintain its own properties. Donnie
Freeman, social enterprise manager for the command, opted to start an in-house landscape management company, using workers hired from the nearby Carr P. Collins Social Service Center. Some of these men were recovering from addiction, some were veterans, but all were homeless, unemployed and hard-pressed to find work elsewhere. “The workers are overcoming many barriers to employment, including the very fact that they are homeless,” Freeman said. “Some have had issues with drug and alcohol abuse, and even though they’ve completed treatment, the stigma remains.” Freeman brought on Burton Niles, an experienced landscaper and irrigator, to train each employee in lawn and plant care, proper equipment usage, safety and irrigation. Niles organized two crews of 12 workers, and with donations from local advisory board members, aims to springboard the employees into other full-time work. “By working on a landscaping crew and proving they are reliable, they become eligible to receive letters of recommendation and assistance in attaining full-time employment,” Freeman said. Ernst, who has worked as an account generator for Socially Responsible Landscape Management since October 2013, said the program has allowed him to ease back into the workforce at a pace he’s comfortable with. “I’ve had great responsibilities in my life,” he said. “I can’t get back into that right now. I need to do something that I can feel good about that still makes me a little bit of money but I need to work a different pace and focus on what’s important, which is my recovery.” While The Salvation Army understands he is in a substance abuse recovery program, he said they still hold him accountable to his duties. “Most employers don’t have much of a tolerance for the [recovery] program,” Ernst said. “I still have meetings that I need to go to to address my addiction. They are flexible, yet there are responsibilities and deadlines and things that need to be done. Donnie Freeman and The Salvation Army have created a wonderful balance where I can come back into mainstream society without the immediate pressures of the world.” In April 2013, the program gained permission to carry out work for entities other than The Salvation Army. The company has since increased its workload to maintaining 55 properties, including 16 commercial properties. One SPRING 2014/CARING
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“There is nothing more rewarding than being able to offer a man a job when he had all but given up hope.”
of the crews recently landscaped, designed and installed a complete irrigation system for The Salvation Army’s Christmas and Disaster Warehouse. Since the business started, 12 men, including Kevin Kirby, have left to go into other full-time work. “When I got out of jail, I didn’t have any money,” Kirby said. “I didn’t have any money until I went to The Salvation Army and went through that program. In those three months I was in the program, I was able to do what I needed to do once I got out. If I could’ve worked more hours I would have.” After working just three months in the program, Kirby dropped off his updated resume and a letter of recommendation from Freeman to a few employers. He had more offers than he knew what to do with. “I had to decide which one I was going to work for ” he said, Kirby accepted a position with Final Touch Landscaping Services, where he’ll soon be leading his own crew. “I’m still in contact with [The Salvation Army] today, thanking them for what they did for me,” he said. Gregg Errera, an Air Force veteran and former cocaine addict, got connected to the program after rehabbing at The Salvation Army’s Dallas Adult Rehabilitation Center. 24
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He has since been hired as the building maintenance coordinator of the nearby Oakcrest Corps. “I was able to get a car, a phone and find a place to live, and I made the contacts to where I could get this job,” Errera said. “You ought to come and take a look at my corps down here; it looks good.” Freeman said he plans to expand the business into other ventures outside of landscaping this spring. Eventually, he hopes to be able to employ four crews of men, accounting for a total of 27 jobs. He said, “There is nothing more rewarding than being able to offer a man a job when he had all but given up hope.”
Jared McKiernan is an associate editor for New Frontier Publications. Connect with Jared website: caringmagazine.org facebook.com/caringmagazine twitter @caringmagazine email: jared.mckiernan@usw.salvationarmy.org
PROJECT FIGHT
A focused anti-trafficking effort in North Carolina BY JESSICA PORTA Angel was 14 when she was first trafficked. With a history of sexual abuse and homelessness, she was vulnerable. A man gave her the attention she lacked, and Angel trusted him. For several years, he trafficked Angel within her hometown—never across state or city borders. Controlled by her abuser, Angel was again arrested for prostitution at 18. But this time was different. While in police custody, a victim advocate identified Angel as a victim of human trafficking— recognizing that she was recruited, harbored and transported through means of force, fraud or coercion for the purpose of exploitation. The advocate connected her with services at The Salvation Army of Wake County in Raleigh, N.C. Project FIGHT (Freeing Individuals Gripped by Human Trafficking) serves 35 victims each year. Case managers connect individuals to immediate needs, as well as medical attention, legal remedies and ongoing therapy. “Due to their past, many of our clients require months or even years of trauma-informed care and therapy,” said Meg Hamilton, case manager. Project FIGHT also aims to raise awareness across North Carolina, which currently ranks within the top 10 states in the nation for human trafficking, according to the Polaris Project. “Initially, Project FIGHT was given a quota of 12 victims over two years,” said Christine Shaw, director
of social ministries and founder of Project FIGHT. “That quota was met in two months.” Since August 2011, Project FIGHT has helped over 75 individuals with two case managers. Partnering with law enforcement, medical professionals and church groups, Project FIGHT has created a web of prevention and identification efforts to end trafficking in North Carolina. Jessica Porta is the anti-human trafficking training and education manager for Project FIGHT in North Carolina. Connect with Project FIGHT website: bit.ly/projectfight facebook.com/salvationarmywakecounty twitter @wakecountyarmy SPRING 2014/CARING
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A RUN TOWARD RECOVERY “After we run, it’s amazing how everything seems better. It’s just a different coping mechanism. Running helps you process everything.” 26
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Denver Adult Rehabilitation Center’s physical health regimen BY RON MCKINNEY Sarah Lewis lived an active lifestyle. An avid runner and soccer player, she couldn’t recall a time when athletics weren’t a part of her life. However, after she finished high school she began using drugs, which grew into an addiction. Consequently, her physical health suffered and her passion for physical fitness dwindled. “I lost that part of myself in my addiction,” Lewis said. She eventually enrolled in Denver’s Adult Rehabilitation Center (ARC), where she received treatment and rediscovered her affinity for exercise. Last May, the Denver ARC joined with Feet on the Street, which organizes 5K and 10K races in Denver, to develop a running program that includes semi-weekly training, nutritional advice, health supplements and activewear for interested beneficiaries. Currently, 20 men and eight women participate in the program. “There is the holistic impact on mind, body and spirit,” Nick Sterner, Feet on the Street owner and member of the Denver ARC’s Advisory Council, said of running. “The way the program is designed offers beneficiaries an opportunity to engage in a healthy, active lifestyle and effectively puts them in touch with a community that is making positive health choices.”
At the start, many struggle to run a quarter of a mile in Denver with its challenging mile-high elevation. Yet, Sterner said in a few weeks of training, the participants advance to running up to three miles. “If we can latch on early, you see a lot of the beneficiaries translate the incremental goal setting of athletics into other areas of their lives,” Sterner said. “We’ve had a lot of guys tell us that [fitness] is why they stay in the [ARC] program.” Exercise lowers stress levels and releases endorphins, which can alleviate depression, according to the Anxiety and Depression Association of America. Exercise also engages the lymphatic system, which cleanses toxins from the body. In the 2009 edition of Principles of Addiction Medicine, Dr. James O. Prochaska wrote, “Physical activity helps manage moods, stress and distress. Also, 60 minutes per week of exercise can provide a recovering person with more than 50 health and mental health benefits. Exercise thus should be prescribed to all sedentary patients with addiction.” Lewis said the program’s fitness component helped change her mentality. “Now, I don’t want to numb the pain out,” Lewis said. “I want to feel pain. I want to feel the pain of running. Even when I know it hurts, I want to finish what I started.” Shortly after Lewis graduated from the ARC program, she was hired by Feet on the Street. “This is a dream job for me,” Lewis said. “After we run, it’s amazing how everything seems better. It’s just a different coping mechanism. Running helps you process everything.” Misty Paulson, who successfully completed the six-month SPRING 2014/CARING
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“You see a lot of the beneficiaries translate the incremental goal setting of athletics into other areas of their lives.”
program, said Feet on the Street was just the outlet she needed. Since graduating, she has reunited with her two daughters. “When I first entered the Adult Rehabilitation Center I wanted to leave rather than put up with the discipline and structure required of us in the program, but I realized I had nowhere else to go,” she said. “When I joined the Feet on the Street program I felt I was able to channel all the anger and hatred I had inside me to the difficult task of running long distance.” Since the program’s inception, ARC beneficiaries have participated in the Cops and Robbers 5K Road Chase and the Sand Creek 5K, notching female second-place and male thirdplace individual finishes in the latter. Samantha Peel, Denver ARC program manager, noted that while physical health is key, it’s just the catalyst for bigger change. “They make a commitment and that commitment becomes a goal,” Peel said. “That goal then becomes structure and that structure becomes hope.” Captain Ron Mckinney is the community relations manager for The Salvation Army Denver ARC. Connect with Ron website: denver.satruck.org facebook.com/thesalvationarmywest email: ron.mckinney@usw.salvationarmy.org
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Veterans start again with services, support and silverware. BY VIVIAN GATICA A big challenge veterans face is reintegration into society and although government help is available, some need an extra push to be able to move forward with their lives. That is where The Salvation Army comes in. “Any veteran faces challenges in reintegration, as there’s a whole lot of criteria that determines if they’re going to be able to get any financial support from the military,” said Gail Crandall, social services director for the Long Beach Citadel Corps. “While there’s HUDVASH, who helps them get the Section 8 [housing] voucher and there’s support services that will help them come up with move-in deposits or utility payments, there is really no financial support to help them furnish the apartment or get the things they need to really get their life going.” Crandall was working with U.S VETS in Long Beach, Calif., an organization providing housing and resources to veterans, to give them vouchers to the Army’s family stores to purchase appliances and furniture for their new homes. However, after meeting with a group of female veterans, she found out that most of them did not have plates, silverware and many other basic necessities. “I was pretty upset because I was thinking,
‘Well here we are helping them with a refrigerator or a stove and they need so much more basic stuff,’” Crandall said. “I felt kind of like I had been living under a rock; like maybe I should have been more aware that this was the case.” Crandall then made a list of items from Walmart, including dishes, glassware, flatware, pots and pans, cooking utensils, bath towels, pillows, pillowcases, blankets, and a $25 gift card. She priced the items out to $250 with an additional $300 Salvation Army Family Store voucher and from this developed, “Welcome to Your New Home” kits. The Downtown Long Beach Lions Club had expressed its willingness to help out the corps. Crandall sent them a request to financially support the program, and received $7,500 to get it started. “The Welcome Kit really eliminates the stress, and it takes a bit of pressure off of [the veterans],” Crandall said. “We could give them a voucher and say go get silverware from the thrift store, but by giving them stuff that’s brand new, it’s sort of symbolic of the brand new life that they’re trying to start.” When veterans took their vouchers to the Long Beach Adult Rehabilitation Center (ARC), Crandall said they got everything they needed with the $300. “They’ve really just gone the extra mile, and really joined and partnered with us to make this program really effective,” Crandall said. The kit is primarily directed toward female veterans and veteran families, as there are fewer resources available to them. However, Crandall said that they do help some male veterans and hope to expand the program to include all veterans that need the help. Veteran Cynthia Ford had been homeless for eight years when she reached out to The Salvation Army for help.
“We could give them a voucher and say go get silverware from the thrift store, but by giving them stuff that’s brand new, it’s sort of symbolic of the brand new life that they’re trying to start.”
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“Every veteran deserves to have that fresh start and to feel loved in the process.” “The military provided a great career, but at the same time, when struggling times did come in life, a little help could have prevented a long journey of despair,” Ford said. “So you just go out into the world and try to deal with them.” While Ford had received the government housing voucher, she could not afford the move-in deposit. The Salvation Army provided her with all the connections and referrals so that she could move in to her new home. “The government veterans program alone was not going to do it; they gave me the [housing] voucher, but no assistance was offered as far as helping you get in there,” Ford said. “I probably wouldn’t have been homeless if I had been aware of The Salvation Army.” Ford received her Welcome Kit and family store voucher, with which she purchased a dining room set. “I couldn’t believe it,” she said. “I expected some help, but this was unbelievable.” Crandall said that after making sure the veterans settle 32
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into their new homes and receive their kits, she remains in contact with them for at least a year and invites them to other church programs. She is also working with Cal State University, Long Beach students to develop a support group. “Every veteran deserves to have that fresh start and to feel loved in the process,” Crandall said. “We just hope and pray we can keep it funded and turn it into a program that will be around for a really long time.”
Vivian Gatica is an editorial assistant for New Frontier Publications. Connect with Vivian website: caringmagazine.org facebook.com/caringmagazine twitter @caringmagazine email: vivian.gatica@usw.salvationarmy.org
What they take home won’t fit in a backpack.
For thousands of children, a week at a Salvation Army summer camp can be life-changing. Many arrive as products of underprivileged and at-risk environments. But our camps
offer a change of environment, with unforgettable experiences and newfound hope. All of which is made possible by your gifts at 1-800-SAL-ARMY or salvationarmyusa.org.
Disaster Relief
Human Trafficking Abolition
Emergency Response
Rehabilitation
Doing the most good
Youth Services
Evangelism
SM
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JAIL ALTERNATIVES Salvation Army becomes home for low-level inmates in Modesto More than 60 percent of inmates released from California prisons wind up back in custody within three years, according to the State Corrections Department. In an effort to reduce the number of inmates in the state’s 33 prisons to 137.5 percent of design capacity, Gov. Jerry Brown signed legislation in 2011 that places low-level (non-violent, low risk) inmates into the hands of individual California counties. Captain Lisa Smith, director at The Salvation Army Berberian Homeless and Transitional Living Center in Modesto, Calif., subsequently partnered with The Stanislaus County Sheriff’s Department to put this legislation into action through “Jail Alternatives.” Smith opened up the shelter to low-level inmates who have been sentenced to house arrest, but have no home. There, the inmates can rehabilitate and eventually reunite them with their families. The Sheriff’s Department paid for five beds to kickstart the project in August 2013. “Many of these non-violent, low-level offenders have addiction issues,” Smith said. “The clean and sober living environment is good for them and they do have accountability. This is a chance for them to rehabilitate and also prevent them from going back to prison.” The $74,000 initiative is completely underwritten by the Sheriff’s Department with the possibility of adding five more beds in the center. This new endeavor is also made possible by the recent remodel of the shelter. “Basically, it is a place for the inmates to stay 34
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until they finish their sentence or find a home,” Smith said. The inmates are treated as transitional living clients and provided with case management and life skills services. They maintain their own areas—men and women reside in separate areas—and are required to wear ankle monitors. “To date, we’ve not had any trouble,” Smith said. “In fact, the inmates are very helpful and they’re part of the life of the building. They socialize with others, volunteer and help out. They want to stay busy.” The program has produced two success stories to date: a man found an apartment and is now living independently, and a woman finished her sentence and will be entering the Berberian transitional living program as soon as a bed is available; she started a nursing program in January. Another participant, Antoinette Fererra, is currently serving a sentence for second-degree burglary and is looking forward to seeing her child again. “I am very blessed to be here,” Fererra said. “The physical and spiritual care has prepared me to get back into society and reunite with my child. Coming to The Salvation Army has given me the opportunity to have a healthier self-image and a blessing in serving other people.”
“It is a place for the inmates to stay until they finish their sentence or find a home.”
Connect with Lisa website: salvationarmymodesto.org email: lisa.smith@usw.salvationarmy.org SPRING 2014/CARING
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AS AMERICAN
FAMILY CHANGES, MISSION TO HELP REMAINS BY SARAH PARVINI In her 16 years of service at The Salvation Army, Ana Aguirre has seen the American family change before her eyes. As program director for the Zahn Memorial Center, an emergency shelter for families in downtown Los Angeles, Aguirre is in constant contact with those in need. She helps single parents, interracial families and inmate parents, who make up much of the change to the typical family the country once knew. Each day, she does her part to get these families back on their feet, providing them with not only shelter, but guidance. Young mothers increasingly pour into the center, she said. “Right now we have a woman in her late 20s who has a 14-yearold child,” Aguirre said. “They have kids when they are very young. Most have GEDs or nothing at all.” Today, it is not uncommon for a woman to be unmarried when they give birth to their first child. Some 40 percent of women without a college degree—and 57 percent who have a high school diploma or less—are single mothers, according to The New York Times. Yet another type of struggling American family—a byproduct of the United States’ high jailing rate—is the family scraping by with one in36
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carcerated parent. An estimated 2.7 million children nationwide have a parent in jail, according to research by the Pew Charitable Trusts. At the Zahn Center, single mothers often cope with incarcerated fathers. Aguirre points to one mother, just 21 years old, with two infants. Another, also in her 20s, seeks assistance with finding housing and care for her toddlers while her spouse faces life in prison. “We have to look for ways to help them see the spouse, and help them deal with courts,” Aguirre says of The Salvation Army’s many duties. Tough loves comes with the job. Often times, women will give a chunk of their small funds to their incarcerated partners for food and other essentials. One mother, Aguirre says, wanted to send $100 of her $500 monthly income to her husband. “I pulled her aside and I said, ‘You need to think of your children. They need a home,’” she recalled. “We tell them what their priorities should be. Their husbands aren’t our priority.” As families changed significantly over the last century, The Salvation Army has tried to keep pace with the shift, modifying its services in-kind. At the start of the AIDS epidemic, for example, The Salvation Army was one of the first providers of shelters for families affected by the disease. “They don’t shove religion down people’s throats,” said Dr. Diane Winston, an expert in religion at the University of Southern California. “On the whole, the Army evangelizes by doing good work for people rather than beating them over the head.” Since it started offering social services in the 1880s, The Salvation Army has tried to meet the needs of people “as they actually are,” Winston said. For centuries, the organization has had to be flexible in the services it offered and sensitive to a range of living or familial arrangements. The Salvation Army’s adaptation to the changing family falls in line with the organization’s Christian ideals—the messages found in the Bible of helping the hungry, poor and dispossessed. SPRING 2014/CARING
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RELIGIOUS AFFILIATIONS
The percentage next to each religious group indicates the percentage of U.S. adults who belong to that group. 0.6% margin of error based on 35,556 cases. Pew Research Center
“In the true compassionate Christian way, they accept people as they are,” Winston said. And The Salvation Army isn’t alone in adaptation to the changing family—as the typical household changes, so does the influence of the Church. Changes in family life have become a main concern in faith communities that view religion and family as inextricably linked—marriage and parenthood make religion more important to people, but families are becoming less religious. Nearly half of Americans say the growing number of “people who are not religious” is bad for society, yet the number of religiously unaffiliated Americans, or “nones,” is only increasing, according to an October 2012 study from the Pew Research Center. As one of the fastest growing “religious” groups in the world, nones show how changing families and varied upbringings have stymied many messages of the Church. One-fifth of the U.S. public and one-third of adults under 30—those who are most likely to have children—fall into this group. Nearly 6 percent of Americans—13 million people—are self-described atheists or agnostics. Families are also more diverse today than they were a decade ago. Increasingly, parents come from different religious and ethnic backgrounds as more same-sex couples take their vows, Catholics marry Jews, and blacks marry whites. “It’s consistent with the Christian church and it’s a scandal in a way that Christianity did not embrace diversity in culture 38
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and in race for many years,” said Major David Harmon, who has spent decades as a minister for The Salvation Army and is in an interracial marriage himself. Interracial marriages can only make The Salvation Army stronger, he added. Harmon and his wife asked themselves a number of questions before they were married more than 30 years ago. Chief among them was whether their racial differences—he is white and she is African-American—was reason enough to stifle an otherwise successful relationship. In the end, they decided they couldn’t abandon a loving partnership on the grounds it might be challenging for others to accept. As mixed marriages like Harmon’s become more common throughout the U.S., The Salvation Army has reached out to racially diverse families through various programs and pastoral counseling, he said. “The intercultural marriage in our clergy and our congregations have made us better servants to the American community,” Harmon said. “It has caused us to think more deeply than in the past. It’s made us more inclusive.” Sarah Parvini is a journalist based in Los Angeles. Connect with Sarah website: sarahparvini.com twitter @parviniparlance
RESOURCES
IN PRINT DAVID AND GOLIATH: UNDERDOGS, MISFITS AND THE ART OF BATTLING GIANTS by Malcolm Gladwell (Little, Brown and Co., 2013) challenges how we think about obstacles and celebrates the greatness of the underdog. Gladwell asserts that the difficulties underdogs face help foster the qualities great leaders need, particularly: faith, courage and determination. He believes hindrances are often beneficial and hardship plays a key role in the building of character. THE UNKINGDOM OF GOD by Mark Van Steenwyk (IVP Books, 2013) explores the numerous ways we have failed our mission by embracing the ways of the world and advancing our own
agendas. He shows us that the starting place of authentic Christian witness is repentance and that while Jesus’ kingdom is not of this world, it remains the only hope of the world. PACKING LIGHT by Allison Vesterfelt (Moody Publishers, 2013) is a memoir that begins when Vesterfelt is 26, has a graduate degree and job, but still feels like something is missing. Vesterfelt decides to give up everything and go on a six-month cross-country road trip exploring all 50 states. She tells the story in an honest way that challenges us to think about what baggage we’re carrying and how to leave it behind. SATISFIED by Jeff Manion (Zondervan, 2013) provides an inspiring and transformative vision for living a deeply contented life in our con-
sumer-driven culture. Exploring six passages of Scripture, Mannion helps readers alter their view of wealth and their understanding of contentment. Satisfied is a much-needed antidote for our need to consume, encouraging us to pursue gratitude and generosity with more intention. THE FREE by Willy Vlautin (Harper Perennial, 2013) is both hopeful and heartbreaking. It focuses on the experiences of three memorable main characters as they face crises of finances, family and faith. Vlautin’s prose is simple and direct, but his characters are rich and complex. The Free is a testament to the resiliency of the human heart.
APPS
TO VIEW
Charity Miles—Donate without dipping into your bank account. Charity Miles is the easiest way to integrate philanthropy into your daily workout by earning money and raising awareness for charities each time you exercise. Just turn on the app, choose a charity and press start. The app measures the distance of your route. Bikers earn 10 cents per mile, while walkers and runners earn 25 cents per mile––all up to Charity Miles’ initial $1 million corporate sponsorship pool.
BLOOD BROTHER Rocky Braat traveled through India searching for nothing in particular. When he encountered a group of HIV-positive children living in an orphanage, he uprooted from his life, friends, and career in Pittsburgh, Penn., to live with the kids. Steve Hoover, his best friend and filmmaker, was as confused as he was intrigued by the decision. Why would Braat leave all he ever knew for this? Hoover took a camera with him and left for India to find out. He witnessed Rocky and the kids endure hardship––even death. Yet, in the midst of their deepest struggles, he saw their deep joy, and came to understand why Braat had given up everything. All filmmaker proceeds are donated to the children seen in the film and to HIV/AIDS initiatives.
One Today—This Google app lets you “give a little and change a lot” by combining philanthropy with the excitement of novelty. Every day, discover a new non-profit organization. If you like its mission, donate $1 from within the app. For example, you can help The Nature Conservatory adopt a coral reef, save a child from pneumonia or fund a critical surgical procedure. Instead—“You don’t have to be a billionaire to change the world. You can do it $3 and $5 at a time,” Instead’s website reads. This “micro donations, macro impact” app is all about tapping into our everyday choices. The app clearly displays the impact of your choice, so in lieu of your regular store-bought coffee, those few dollars could provide a South Sudanese child with clean water for a year. 40
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