This post is dedicated to Shellie Renee Hunt, whose infamous memory helps inspire me to believe I can run my own business.
It was a successful night of outreach. It was a little bit of everything kind of a night. Someone donated the ingredients, so I made a big ol’ roasting pan of Spaghetti. We worked with the volunteer teams that showed up to help us out with sorting/packing donations on Tuesday morning. They are truly wonderful ladies and gentlemen. Traci and I would be less well armed without them.
We started the trip bouncing from a lot of abandoned buildings. We were able to help a lot of sick people, people sleeping on the ground, in huddled up in doorways, packed hidden amongst dead trees, or just wandering shivering down the sidewalks.
Whenever we park the van on a busy road, people will just start coming from every direction. The smell of homemade spaghetti was too much to overcome! I was able to purchase more pepper spray. Someone donated a package of flashlights, and that’s an extra special treat.
We were helping a steady stream of homeless men and women who trickled up alongside the van. As I handed a lady a fresh pepper spray and flashlight, she jumped up in the air and hooted, then she told me,
“These have saved my life three times just recently! Oh, thank God! Thank you, ladies!”
I asked her what she liked best in the hygiene kits. What was the most useful? What was in there she didn’t need? Was there anything I forgot? I wanted her to have what SHE needed, not just what I thought she needed.
She reported that our hygiene kits are tops! Baby wipes are the best. Everything in there is perfect. I asked her if any other street team nonprofits had good hygiene kits. She claimed that they did not. It was all large bottles of shampoo and body wash that no one could use because they didn’t have a shower, let alone access to running water.
For our Magdalene’s Mission Street Report Card, we received:
Hygiene kits- A+
Food- A+
Clothes- A+
Everything else- A+
When I say ‘A+’ what I mean is, we set the curve for the class. I am a competitive person to a certain extent. Most of us are. I don’t have to be the best at everything, but when I pick a thing, I want to be the best at it.
Our nonprofit is that. Every item we offer, every purse, every pair of socks, backpack, blanket, homemade cookie, is presented as a gift of love. We treat every person we meet with compassion, and dignity. Every blanket is clean, folded, and put into a bag, or rolling suitcase they can carry it back in. We think of everything and take requests for even more.
When Maggie the van drives around, it’s like Santa’s sleigh rolling through Detroit ghettos.
We have the highest quality of generosity in street outreach that I know of in Detroit. At least, that’s what I have been told by my friend who is a homeless sex worker. Her opinion of Magdalene’s Mission is more important than any award, or anyone else in Detroit. She is the reason we are there.
It means that we have become the change in the world that we want to see. What we can give to our species is more of a status symbol than what we are able to hoard from it.
Magdalene’s Mission will collect all the extra’s it can hustle up and you’re willing to give. Then we find people who cannot afford to repay us.
First, we offer them peace.
Next, we offer them love.
Then, we offer them hygiene.
Because that’s how we do it in Detroit.
In Jesus name.
Amen.
