[The following appeared in the Amherst Bulletin on October 5, 2007]
I sat down to lunch one day at the Amherst Survival Center with a woman named Marie (not her real name) and we started to chat. She explained to me that she and her children had found an apartment after several months of sleeping on relatives' couches. She had been coming to the Survival Center to find the kinds of things that make a house feel more like a home, one of which was a coffeemaker.
We work with many women in similar circumstances, but Marie's story had an interesting twist. At first, she found no coffeemaker, but did manage to get a carafe. On her next visit, she located the base of a coffee maker, but it lacked a cone. A couple of visits later she found the cone, and with some ingenuity combined the individual pieces into a working coffee maker. With coffee from our pantry and paper towels as filters, Marie could begin her days like many of us, with a warm cup of java in her own apartment.
There are many things that one might take from this story (including bewilderment about why anyone would donate just a piece of an appliance to the Survival Center), but Marie took her makeshift coffee maker as a metaphor for her own life. A single working mother of three young children, she explained to me her strategy for survival. It involved putting together life's necessities from a wide variety of unconnected sources: a box of canned food from our place, clothing from the Salvation Army in Hadley, school supplies in the fall from a church in Springfield, and so on. This way of living is about as far from today's super-efficient Internet consumerism as you can get, yet Marie has the strength to be able to pull it all together.
Part of the reason I find the parable of Marie's coffee maker so striking is that, reflecting now on my first six months as director of the Amherst Survival Center, it occurs to me that the metaphor is as apt for the Center itself as it is for the way Marie provides for her family. Like Marie, the Survival Center each year provides food, clothing and community for about 3,000 households in more than ten towns - our extended family, as one volunteer describes it. The piecemeal connections that make this work are complex and astonishing.
Take our fresh food supplies, for example. Food for lunch and distribution is generously donated by sources as diverse as Trader Joe's, Whole Foods, Atkins Farms, Panera, Maple Farms, the Food Bank Farm, Henion Bakery, Antonio's Pizza, Simple Gifts Farm, Riverland Farm and many other local small farmers, merchants, and church groups supplemented by supplies from the Food Bank of Western Mass. Imagine yourself in our cook's shoes, finding out what ingredients will be available to prepare a hot lunch for 60 only when the food rolls down the ramp into the kitchen just a couple of hours before mealtime. Yet every day, she and her revolving crew of volunteers produce a lunch equal to any holiday feast, hot and on the table at noon without fail.
The diversity of our volunteers and consumers reflects another kind of piecing together that happens at the Center. During a typical day in our Free Store, the team of volunteers includes women from places as far-flung as Moldavia, Iran, Ghana, China, and Venezuela. A veterans group, some UMass lacrosse players, and several community service workers from the District Court team up to transport donated furniture to our storage trailers. In the emergency food pantry, a high school student lifts boxes laden with cans, a homeless man assists consumers in making their choices, a mother and her young daughter stock shelves, and a retired engineer breaks down cardboard cartons for recycling. In the kitchen, a local property owner, a farmer, a woman who recently lost her home and two college kids prepare lunch with the cook. At any lunchtime table, you find all of them breaking bread together, people who would otherwise never meet.
As improvised as Marie's coffee maker, this is true community, and it works.
[http://www.amherstbulletin.com/story/id/61334/]
Friday, October 5, 2007
Friday, September 21, 2007
Scott
In a college town like ours, Fall is the start of a new year, fresh with possibilities. This year at the Survival Center, though, we're beginning the year in mourning for one of our regulars, Scott, whose body was found on the bank of a nearby river about a week ago.
Everybody knew Scott. He was the young guy (38 when he died, though he looked even younger) with the wild red hair, sunburn-peeled nose and the bare feet soaking up the warmth in a sunny spot by the kitchen door in the morning.
Though Scott lived outdoors, he would bristle at being called a homeless man. One thing I've learned in my six months here is that homelessness covers a wide variety of situations that don't conform readily to common stereotypes. Scott loved the outdoors. His homelessness flowed from a passionate appreciation for the environment, a passion that may have overtaken the more typical instinct for safety and comfort, for self-preservation.
Scott was also an ardent advocate for justice. He spent many hours standing quietly, observing as activity swirled around him at the Center. I could always rely on Scott to bring to my attention—gently but with a keen urgency—problems or inconsistencies that he had witnessed, and he worked with us to make sure that our rules and policies were clearly posted and followed. Scott’s primary interest was in making the Center a place where respect and kindness permeated each and every interaction. He never complained on his own behalf, but was always mindful about the comfort and safety of others.
Yet, for all this, Scott was clearly a troubled man. He clung tenaciously to a vision of a perfect world. His strongly held faith in the possibility of goodness took a daily beating in the rough-and-tumble of everyday existence. Most of us make a sort of peace with the disconnect between the kind of world we strive for and the one we actually live in. Scott, ultimately, could not.
I suspect that there are others who pass through the Survival Center who suffer in a similar way. Fervent in their beliefs that the Center, the town, and the world could all achieve perfection, they struggle against imperfect reality to the point where their fanaticism may overtake their ability to function in the mainstream.
Yet I’m lucky to be in a position where I can learn from these folks. As Director of the Survival Center, I count on them to keep my feet to the fire, to remind me not to give in to complacency or frustration, to tell me in no uncertain terms that the world really can be a better place. I hope to be able to continue to pay tribute to Scott in the coming years by remembering, and acting upon, the force of his extraordinary vision.
Everybody knew Scott. He was the young guy (38 when he died, though he looked even younger) with the wild red hair, sunburn-peeled nose and the bare feet soaking up the warmth in a sunny spot by the kitchen door in the morning.
Though Scott lived outdoors, he would bristle at being called a homeless man. One thing I've learned in my six months here is that homelessness covers a wide variety of situations that don't conform readily to common stereotypes. Scott loved the outdoors. His homelessness flowed from a passionate appreciation for the environment, a passion that may have overtaken the more typical instinct for safety and comfort, for self-preservation.
Scott was also an ardent advocate for justice. He spent many hours standing quietly, observing as activity swirled around him at the Center. I could always rely on Scott to bring to my attention—gently but with a keen urgency—problems or inconsistencies that he had witnessed, and he worked with us to make sure that our rules and policies were clearly posted and followed. Scott’s primary interest was in making the Center a place where respect and kindness permeated each and every interaction. He never complained on his own behalf, but was always mindful about the comfort and safety of others.
Yet, for all this, Scott was clearly a troubled man. He clung tenaciously to a vision of a perfect world. His strongly held faith in the possibility of goodness took a daily beating in the rough-and-tumble of everyday existence. Most of us make a sort of peace with the disconnect between the kind of world we strive for and the one we actually live in. Scott, ultimately, could not.
I suspect that there are others who pass through the Survival Center who suffer in a similar way. Fervent in their beliefs that the Center, the town, and the world could all achieve perfection, they struggle against imperfect reality to the point where their fanaticism may overtake their ability to function in the mainstream.
Yet I’m lucky to be in a position where I can learn from these folks. As Director of the Survival Center, I count on them to keep my feet to the fire, to remind me not to give in to complacency or frustration, to tell me in no uncertain terms that the world really can be a better place. I hope to be able to continue to pay tribute to Scott in the coming years by remembering, and acting upon, the force of his extraordinary vision.
Tuesday, July 24, 2007
Summer Hiatus
Stay tuned for more blog entries in September!
For more information about the Amherst Survival Center, surf over to:
http://www.people.umass.edu/support/asc/
For more information about the Amherst Survival Center, surf over to:
http://www.people.umass.edu/support/asc/
Saturday, June 23, 2007
IMPACT
An exciting dimension to working at the Survival Center is that past, present and future are all alive here. The present speaks for itself, loud and clear, with nearly 100 people coming through daily for food, clothing and community. Unlike many organizations, however, our long past is present as well, with volunteers who have been with us for 5, 10, 20 years or more. If you’ve ever been here, you’ve met David, for example, who for twenty-five years has been greeting people at the front door with a friendly growl of “Hi Grandma” and directing them where they need to go.
But what of our future? In the last tumultuous year, many predicted that the ASC, buried in tangled layers of its past, and under a cloud of controversy, was doomed. Having been at this now for three months, however, I can confidently say, paraphrasing Mark Twain, that “reports of our death have been greatly exaggerated.” Our future is as secure and real as our vibrant past and present.
In coming to this understanding, I have first had to think about what it means to be a successful organization. Like many, I define success in terms of impact. I work with a rough framework that involves three degrees of impact, from lowest to highest:
1. Impact on Survival:
Help clients meet basic needs to get by in the short term
2. Impact on Self-Reliance:
Teach skills that provide greater long-term security
3. Impact on Community:
Empower clients to work together to effect positive social change
The framework is useful in evaluating our programs, and it helps identify future directions for the Center. The Free Store provides a good example of these ideas at work.
Impact on Survival
The Free Store’s most obvious impact is at the level of Survival: the store helps satisfy consumers’ basic needs for clothing and household items. In the past week alone, we’ve provided everything from dishes for a family who lost all their possessions in an apartment fire, to a wooden high chair needed by a struggling couple for their disabled infant, to a clean t-shirt on a hot day for a homeless man whose only other piece of clothing was an uncomfortably heavy sweater. The Survival Center has traditionally assessed only this level of impact, which at a distribution rate of about 350 pounds per day, is significant.
Impact on Self-Reliance
Impact on self-reliance has never, to my knowledge, been articulated at ASC. Yet through the many volunteer jobs available at the Center, clients gain valuable personal and job skills that should lead to better mainstream employment.
Consider a busy week in the Free Store. In the sorting room, a team of volunteers—primarily women, many of whom are also clients at the center—process a 15 foot pile of donations and display them for distribution in the store. It may sound easy, but the task involves many vital employment skills, not the least of which is showing up for scheduled regular shifts. Our volunteers welcome donors into the Center, make complex decisions about quality control, hang, fold and display clothes in an attractive manner, and monitor inventory to keep the store stocked. Moreover, working in the Free Store also requires the ability to work in a diverse cross-cultural environment. The sorting room this week included volunteers from places as far-flung as Moldavia, Iran, Ghana, China, and Venezuela. Many of these women do not speak English, but their language ability always improves through relaxed volunteer chit-chat. Good skills in these areas are key in Amherst’s tough job market. To the extent that people acquire them through their work at the Center, we are having a significant impact on clients’ ability to achieve self-reliance and economic security.
Impact on Community
In what way might the Free Store have an impact on the community at large? I believe that there is much more for us to do at this level. We have huge potential to further develop crucial leadership skills among our volunteer ranks whose effects will spill over to the communities in which they live.
Consider what transpired this week. For the last ten years or so, the Free Store has been primarily staff-managed, but this week the key staff member was on vacation. I had nightmares about our little Center stuffed to the ceiling with plastic bags filled with donations of all kinds, but an amazing thing happened. Volunteer leadership emerged to fill the vacuum, and suddenly every day there was a full team of sorters working steadily from 9-3. The 15-foot mountain of plastic bags was eliminated, the store looked beautiful, and the volunteers expressed great satisfaction with their accomplishment.
To me, this looks like the first step toward a volunteer led cooperative clothing program. This kind of transformation is one way to raise the impact of the Free Store to the level of the whole community. A coop structure entails building strong leadership. It is well known that workers who control management decisions feel empowered to take control of other aspects of their lives and communities, a crucial step in feeling empowered to advocate for broader social changes. ASC is already set up to foster volunteer leadership, so while a change in the Free Store structure will take thought and planning, it grows naturally from our existing programs and builds on our deeply held beliefs and current capabilities.
For all of our programs, impact assessment reveals agency strength at every level. There is no doubt that the state of the Amherst Survival Center is strong and healthy. Our broadest goal now is to maximize community impact. As we continue to grow, we will aim to achieve it fully.
But what of our future? In the last tumultuous year, many predicted that the ASC, buried in tangled layers of its past, and under a cloud of controversy, was doomed. Having been at this now for three months, however, I can confidently say, paraphrasing Mark Twain, that “reports of our death have been greatly exaggerated.” Our future is as secure and real as our vibrant past and present.
In coming to this understanding, I have first had to think about what it means to be a successful organization. Like many, I define success in terms of impact. I work with a rough framework that involves three degrees of impact, from lowest to highest:
1. Impact on Survival:
Help clients meet basic needs to get by in the short term
2. Impact on Self-Reliance:
Teach skills that provide greater long-term security
3. Impact on Community:
Empower clients to work together to effect positive social change
The framework is useful in evaluating our programs, and it helps identify future directions for the Center. The Free Store provides a good example of these ideas at work.
Impact on Survival
The Free Store’s most obvious impact is at the level of Survival: the store helps satisfy consumers’ basic needs for clothing and household items. In the past week alone, we’ve provided everything from dishes for a family who lost all their possessions in an apartment fire, to a wooden high chair needed by a struggling couple for their disabled infant, to a clean t-shirt on a hot day for a homeless man whose only other piece of clothing was an uncomfortably heavy sweater. The Survival Center has traditionally assessed only this level of impact, which at a distribution rate of about 350 pounds per day, is significant.
Impact on Self-Reliance
Impact on self-reliance has never, to my knowledge, been articulated at ASC. Yet through the many volunteer jobs available at the Center, clients gain valuable personal and job skills that should lead to better mainstream employment.
Consider a busy week in the Free Store. In the sorting room, a team of volunteers—primarily women, many of whom are also clients at the center—process a 15 foot pile of donations and display them for distribution in the store. It may sound easy, but the task involves many vital employment skills, not the least of which is showing up for scheduled regular shifts. Our volunteers welcome donors into the Center, make complex decisions about quality control, hang, fold and display clothes in an attractive manner, and monitor inventory to keep the store stocked. Moreover, working in the Free Store also requires the ability to work in a diverse cross-cultural environment. The sorting room this week included volunteers from places as far-flung as Moldavia, Iran, Ghana, China, and Venezuela. Many of these women do not speak English, but their language ability always improves through relaxed volunteer chit-chat. Good skills in these areas are key in Amherst’s tough job market. To the extent that people acquire them through their work at the Center, we are having a significant impact on clients’ ability to achieve self-reliance and economic security.
Impact on Community
In what way might the Free Store have an impact on the community at large? I believe that there is much more for us to do at this level. We have huge potential to further develop crucial leadership skills among our volunteer ranks whose effects will spill over to the communities in which they live.
Consider what transpired this week. For the last ten years or so, the Free Store has been primarily staff-managed, but this week the key staff member was on vacation. I had nightmares about our little Center stuffed to the ceiling with plastic bags filled with donations of all kinds, but an amazing thing happened. Volunteer leadership emerged to fill the vacuum, and suddenly every day there was a full team of sorters working steadily from 9-3. The 15-foot mountain of plastic bags was eliminated, the store looked beautiful, and the volunteers expressed great satisfaction with their accomplishment.
To me, this looks like the first step toward a volunteer led cooperative clothing program. This kind of transformation is one way to raise the impact of the Free Store to the level of the whole community. A coop structure entails building strong leadership. It is well known that workers who control management decisions feel empowered to take control of other aspects of their lives and communities, a crucial step in feeling empowered to advocate for broader social changes. ASC is already set up to foster volunteer leadership, so while a change in the Free Store structure will take thought and planning, it grows naturally from our existing programs and builds on our deeply held beliefs and current capabilities.
For all of our programs, impact assessment reveals agency strength at every level. There is no doubt that the state of the Amherst Survival Center is strong and healthy. Our broadest goal now is to maximize community impact. As we continue to grow, we will aim to achieve it fully.
Sunday, June 17, 2007
Universal Laws
Physicists claim that the total number of atoms in the universe remains constant, that matter is neither created nor destroyed. Our Free Store, a “store” where donations of house wares and clothing are made available to consumers, free of charge, is a great example of the way in which universal matter is conserved. Donors bring in items they no longer need and feel satisfied that their old things are serving a useful purpose. Shoppers, in turn, have an opportunity to provide for their families in times of economic insecurity.
The slice o’ cosmic matter that passes through the Survival Center is broad, from clothing so worn that it falls apart at the touch to scarily persistent items that could probably survive a nuclear holocaust. One of my favorite examples of the latter is the wooden tie that came in April. It’s made of heavy, brown wood and looks like something Pinocchio might wear if he grew up to be a used car salesman. The tie hangs heavy, at about 8 ounces. To get a feel for the weight, I’d recommend wearing a large baking potato on a string around your neck to work one day. Believe me, this tie will outlast all of us, and possibly even the universe itself.
We do get many wonderful donations, though. In 2006, for example, we received an impressive 122, 599 pounds of clothing and household goods, the majority of which were put to excellent use. Yet I wouldn’t blame our volunteer sorters for fantasizing about alternative universes where perhaps there is a way for at least some of the more problematic matter to simply disappear. This is because approximately 50,000 pounds (41%) of what came in last year was either dirty, torn, broken, way out of season, or otherwise unusable. The Center is responsible for sorting and disposing of all of it. This presents a potentially expensive and difficult challenge, especially when you consider that our “sorting room” is the width of a single bowling lane, and a good deal shorter.
This problem is one I know that is shared by all of the local Survival Centers—see for example the recent article in the Hampshire Gazette—and is in some ways a small price to pay for the outpouring of generosity supporting the Center. I am looking, though, for a clearer way to communicate our needs that will help donors make decisions about what to contribute.
Someone recently suggested the simple guideline that if you wouldn’t give it to a friend, then we probably cannot give it out at the Center. This points in the right direction, but I’m not sure that it says enough. I worry that the more egregious dumping of useless or ruined goods reflects a profound misunderstanding of the people who frequent the Store and the situation that they find themselves in. This is an issue, of course, that extends further than old clothing and wooden ties. It highlights the need for our work at the Center to deepen, to move beyond just supplying basic needs and more toward engaging the community in understanding the realities that bring people into the Center and in creating a universe where the Free Store is no longer a necessity.
The slice o’ cosmic matter that passes through the Survival Center is broad, from clothing so worn that it falls apart at the touch to scarily persistent items that could probably survive a nuclear holocaust. One of my favorite examples of the latter is the wooden tie that came in April. It’s made of heavy, brown wood and looks like something Pinocchio might wear if he grew up to be a used car salesman. The tie hangs heavy, at about 8 ounces. To get a feel for the weight, I’d recommend wearing a large baking potato on a string around your neck to work one day. Believe me, this tie will outlast all of us, and possibly even the universe itself.
We do get many wonderful donations, though. In 2006, for example, we received an impressive 122, 599 pounds of clothing and household goods, the majority of which were put to excellent use. Yet I wouldn’t blame our volunteer sorters for fantasizing about alternative universes where perhaps there is a way for at least some of the more problematic matter to simply disappear. This is because approximately 50,000 pounds (41%) of what came in last year was either dirty, torn, broken, way out of season, or otherwise unusable. The Center is responsible for sorting and disposing of all of it. This presents a potentially expensive and difficult challenge, especially when you consider that our “sorting room” is the width of a single bowling lane, and a good deal shorter.
This problem is one I know that is shared by all of the local Survival Centers—see for example the recent article in the Hampshire Gazette—and is in some ways a small price to pay for the outpouring of generosity supporting the Center. I am looking, though, for a clearer way to communicate our needs that will help donors make decisions about what to contribute.
Someone recently suggested the simple guideline that if you wouldn’t give it to a friend, then we probably cannot give it out at the Center. This points in the right direction, but I’m not sure that it says enough. I worry that the more egregious dumping of useless or ruined goods reflects a profound misunderstanding of the people who frequent the Store and the situation that they find themselves in. This is an issue, of course, that extends further than old clothing and wooden ties. It highlights the need for our work at the Center to deepen, to move beyond just supplying basic needs and more toward engaging the community in understanding the realities that bring people into the Center and in creating a universe where the Free Store is no longer a necessity.
Wednesday, May 30, 2007
Space
In 1961, JFK vowed that the US would "put a man on the moon and return him safely by the end of the decade." At ASC, our parallel goal for 2007 is "to move a client from the Free Store to the Kitchen and return her happily by the end of the day." Sure, the moon is 238,855 miles from Earth, and we're only talking about roughly 238 feet here, but in many ways the challenge is as great.
Consider the vastness of space. A few astronauts in a space ship, zooming toward the moon, are highly unlikely to run into traffic. It's just stars, stars, stars, light-years away, as far as the eye can see. Now consider the size, layout and population of the Survival Center. Our space is laid out like a barbell, and our challenge is to propel a full-room of people through a narrow and crowded hallway to emerge unscathed at the other end into our only other sizeable room.
The flow of people through the center plays a big role in creating a successful flow of the day. Just before we open at 11 AM, a large crowd assembles outside. When we open our doors, 30-50 people pour into the Free Store (the left end of the barbell) to await their turn, deli-style, for fresh produce and bread in the kitchen (the right end of the barbell). While they wait, some take the opportunity to shop in the Store, others stand chatting with their friends, while many try to carve out enough area to stand quietly alone without being bumped into or tripped over. The small space, with its only outlet a narrow corridor, intensifies the natural stress and anxiety that go along with needing food for your family and not knowing whether, once your turn comes, there will be enough. On occasion, tempers flare, generally in the most constricted areas of the center.
One of the things I'm proudest of in the last two months is the way in which staff have worked creatively to better utilize our limited space. Two enormous metal food carts, once stored in the hallway, now have a cozy spot in a broader section of the free store. A huge wagon filled with broken down cardboard that once obstructed passage now sits in its own corner, tucked away from the central traffic artery. The clothing in the Free Store has been reorganized to create more room for relaxed community, and we've added couches and chairs to give another small corner more of a "living room" feel. As the need for our services grows, exploiting the limited size of our basement barbell can take us only so far, however. We are beginning now to work with our community to find a new home adequate to our current needs but with space to initiate new programs as well. If JFK could put a man on the moon, then we can surely hope to succeed in meeting our own small challenge.
Consider the vastness of space. A few astronauts in a space ship, zooming toward the moon, are highly unlikely to run into traffic. It's just stars, stars, stars, light-years away, as far as the eye can see. Now consider the size, layout and population of the Survival Center. Our space is laid out like a barbell, and our challenge is to propel a full-room of people through a narrow and crowded hallway to emerge unscathed at the other end into our only other sizeable room.
The flow of people through the center plays a big role in creating a successful flow of the day. Just before we open at 11 AM, a large crowd assembles outside. When we open our doors, 30-50 people pour into the Free Store (the left end of the barbell) to await their turn, deli-style, for fresh produce and bread in the kitchen (the right end of the barbell). While they wait, some take the opportunity to shop in the Store, others stand chatting with their friends, while many try to carve out enough area to stand quietly alone without being bumped into or tripped over. The small space, with its only outlet a narrow corridor, intensifies the natural stress and anxiety that go along with needing food for your family and not knowing whether, once your turn comes, there will be enough. On occasion, tempers flare, generally in the most constricted areas of the center.
One of the things I'm proudest of in the last two months is the way in which staff have worked creatively to better utilize our limited space. Two enormous metal food carts, once stored in the hallway, now have a cozy spot in a broader section of the free store. A huge wagon filled with broken down cardboard that once obstructed passage now sits in its own corner, tucked away from the central traffic artery. The clothing in the Free Store has been reorganized to create more room for relaxed community, and we've added couches and chairs to give another small corner more of a "living room" feel. As the need for our services grows, exploiting the limited size of our basement barbell can take us only so far, however. We are beginning now to work with our community to find a new home adequate to our current needs but with space to initiate new programs as well. If JFK could put a man on the moon, then we can surely hope to succeed in meeting our own small challenge.
Monday, May 21, 2007
Community Services Serve the Community
The town of Amherst has always been a very generous supporter of its social services. Indeed, the Survival Center owes its very existence to Town Meeting 1976, which voted to offer space and seed money to Jane Holappa to realize her vision of a community center that would help meet the basic needs of all of our citizens. This generosity extends to many of the agencies that provide vital social services in town.
Now, like all the cities and towns in Massachusetts, Amherst is encountering a potentially devastating budgetary crisis in FY08. Faced with possible cuts to critical police, fire and school services, it is inevitable that all of us will feel the pinch. As a result, some town meeting members are asking themselves, ”Why should private non-profit agencies like the Survival Center, like Family Outreach, like Not Bread Alone, get funding from the town of Amherst?” To me, the answer is clear. Community Services serve the whole community.
Public safety and education have emerged as major priorities in budget discussions. A common equation pits human services against these needs. But as we're making our budget decisions, the question shouldn't be "Which should we support: public safety or human services?" We should be looking instead at the big picture, and asking the deeper questions about how we can promote education and safety most effectively. Once we do so, it becomes clear that local non-profits are key to achieving these goals. Community services serve the community.
The Survival Center plays a major foundational role in our children’s education, for example. It’s well known that good nutrition is a major key to academic success. The 3,000 food boxes we prepare each year go primarily to families, feeding children’s bodies and minds. It might be possible for the town to step in and provide this service, but I’d bet that the Center is more cost effective. A calculation I did recently showed that ASC can feed 40 people for three days on just $100. It’s unlikely that the schools can do better.
The Survival Center helps maintain public safety as well. I’ve been told by the police, for example, what a valuable resource the Center is. We help the police keep the peace by providing a community center for people whose only other option might be spending the day at a downtown bus stop or on the steps of a church. We serve dozens of such people each day. Helping people stay off the street is a very direct consequence of what we do, but I’d argue that our indirect effect is even larger. By helping people to meet their basic needs, we relieve pressure that might otherwise cause very good people to resort to desperate means just to survive. And again, our operations are extremely cost-effective.
In these ways and others, the Center is key to creating the level of education and public safety that our community aspires to. All of the non-profits in town could make the same kind of case for the work they do. We're all prepared to tighten our belts. I’d ask only that as we make our budget decisions, we remember that nonprofits are a critical tool of the public sector because we contribute, on the front lines, to solving public problems. I feel fortunate to be in a town like Amherst, which has always recognized how true this is.
Now, like all the cities and towns in Massachusetts, Amherst is encountering a potentially devastating budgetary crisis in FY08. Faced with possible cuts to critical police, fire and school services, it is inevitable that all of us will feel the pinch. As a result, some town meeting members are asking themselves, ”Why should private non-profit agencies like the Survival Center, like Family Outreach, like Not Bread Alone, get funding from the town of Amherst?” To me, the answer is clear. Community Services serve the whole community.
Public safety and education have emerged as major priorities in budget discussions. A common equation pits human services against these needs. But as we're making our budget decisions, the question shouldn't be "Which should we support: public safety or human services?" We should be looking instead at the big picture, and asking the deeper questions about how we can promote education and safety most effectively. Once we do so, it becomes clear that local non-profits are key to achieving these goals. Community services serve the community.
The Survival Center plays a major foundational role in our children’s education, for example. It’s well known that good nutrition is a major key to academic success. The 3,000 food boxes we prepare each year go primarily to families, feeding children’s bodies and minds. It might be possible for the town to step in and provide this service, but I’d bet that the Center is more cost effective. A calculation I did recently showed that ASC can feed 40 people for three days on just $100. It’s unlikely that the schools can do better.
The Survival Center helps maintain public safety as well. I’ve been told by the police, for example, what a valuable resource the Center is. We help the police keep the peace by providing a community center for people whose only other option might be spending the day at a downtown bus stop or on the steps of a church. We serve dozens of such people each day. Helping people stay off the street is a very direct consequence of what we do, but I’d argue that our indirect effect is even larger. By helping people to meet their basic needs, we relieve pressure that might otherwise cause very good people to resort to desperate means just to survive. And again, our operations are extremely cost-effective.
In these ways and others, the Center is key to creating the level of education and public safety that our community aspires to. All of the non-profits in town could make the same kind of case for the work they do. We're all prepared to tighten our belts. I’d ask only that as we make our budget decisions, we remember that nonprofits are a critical tool of the public sector because we contribute, on the front lines, to solving public problems. I feel fortunate to be in a town like Amherst, which has always recognized how true this is.
Saturday, May 12, 2007
By the numbers
There are many ways to describe the Survival Center. Most describe us by our programs, as a place that provides "food, clothing and community" to folks in need. For those of us at the center on a daily basis, our images of ASC may have more to do with the people who work at and use the center: Debbie in the pantry, who at 70 still travels for an hour on two buses every morning to open things up as she has for the past thirty years; Marla and Linda, busy by 7:30 chopping and stirring in preparation for lunch; Vern, Andrew, Anita, and Chuck making sure that everything is presentable before we open our doors; Collette, Susan, Peggy, Greg, Curtis, Bart, Adam, Cathy, Mary...The center is rich with stories of the people who come through daily.
A third way of describing ASC is "by the numbers." This perspective took a front seat this week as we finalized the budget for Fiscal Year 2008, which begins in July. Numbers can be very revealing, and, through this process, I gained a much clearer sense of our impact. For example, last year we prepared 10,000 hot nutritious lunches, provided boxes of food staples to 3,000 households, distributed at least 50,000 pounds of fresh produce and bread, and made roughly 12,000 pounds of donated clothing and housewares available to consumers. That’s a lot for a little place like ours, situated in a few rooms in the basement of an old school.
I also learned how cost effective our operation is. Our cook and her crew put together a sumptuous lunch for approximately $3 per person. That means that we’re catering daily for 50 people at a cost of just $150. Food boxes in the pantry cost us about $10 each. A box, which contains canned food, pasta, peanut butter, and often frozen meat, juice and oil, supplies nine meals for a family of four. $100, then, provides emergency supplies for forty people for three days.
It’s also striking to see how many people we serve. Our statistics show that we make about 18,000 client contacts a year, approximately 87 each day from twenty area towns spanning from Amherst to Ware, from Hadley to Greenfield. Volunteer statistics are remarkable as well. We average 115 volunteers each month, many of whom are also clients. Together, they put in about 15,000 hours of labor annually cleaning, cooking, answering phones, picking up and sorting donations, and performing dozens of other critical tasks. That works out to a whopping 72 volunteer hours contributed each day, equal to the work of 9 full time employees!
So, while it’s true that numbers can never tell the whole story, these numbers do tell a revealing one of an agency working hard to fulfill its mission. Amherst Survival Center clearly plays a vital and unique role in meeting people’s needs for “food, clothing and community” in the broader Amherst area, a role we plan to keep filling for at least thirty years more!
A third way of describing ASC is "by the numbers." This perspective took a front seat this week as we finalized the budget for Fiscal Year 2008, which begins in July. Numbers can be very revealing, and, through this process, I gained a much clearer sense of our impact. For example, last year we prepared 10,000 hot nutritious lunches, provided boxes of food staples to 3,000 households, distributed at least 50,000 pounds of fresh produce and bread, and made roughly 12,000 pounds of donated clothing and housewares available to consumers. That’s a lot for a little place like ours, situated in a few rooms in the basement of an old school.
I also learned how cost effective our operation is. Our cook and her crew put together a sumptuous lunch for approximately $3 per person. That means that we’re catering daily for 50 people at a cost of just $150. Food boxes in the pantry cost us about $10 each. A box, which contains canned food, pasta, peanut butter, and often frozen meat, juice and oil, supplies nine meals for a family of four. $100, then, provides emergency supplies for forty people for three days.
It’s also striking to see how many people we serve. Our statistics show that we make about 18,000 client contacts a year, approximately 87 each day from twenty area towns spanning from Amherst to Ware, from Hadley to Greenfield. Volunteer statistics are remarkable as well. We average 115 volunteers each month, many of whom are also clients. Together, they put in about 15,000 hours of labor annually cleaning, cooking, answering phones, picking up and sorting donations, and performing dozens of other critical tasks. That works out to a whopping 72 volunteer hours contributed each day, equal to the work of 9 full time employees!
So, while it’s true that numbers can never tell the whole story, these numbers do tell a revealing one of an agency working hard to fulfill its mission. Amherst Survival Center clearly plays a vital and unique role in meeting people’s needs for “food, clothing and community” in the broader Amherst area, a role we plan to keep filling for at least thirty years more!
Saturday, May 5, 2007
Family and community
Right before lunch yesterday, a woman I'll call "Alice" walked cautiously into the center, clearly for the first time. In a quiet voice, but obviously desperate, she asked if she could use our phone to arrange a trip to the South Shore where there was a family that was willing to let her sleep on their floor while she looked for a new job. She had been "downsized" recently, and needed employment in order to earn enough money to be able to have her grandchild, whose own mother had just died, return to live with her. The $26 price of a bus ticket to Boston was clearly the one thin wall between her having a place to sleep indoors that night or beginning to live on the street. We helped her with that ticket and saw her off at the bus station. I woke up this morning thinking about her, and hoping that she made it safely to her destination.
This incident brought home to me just how much the Survival Center serves what more traditionally would have been the role of neighbor or extended family to many of the people who pass through our doors. Ruth, our board president, remarked to me this week about the incredible moral support clients provide for each other when they drop in for coffee or lunch. Moreover, like family, people come here to "borrow a cup of sugar" from the food pantry or to get hand-me-downs for their children from the free store. We are sometimes asked to step in financially in small ways as well--with a bus ticket or to help pay for a mother's burial--although the ups and downs of our emergency fund often make this kind of support more difficult.
Also like family is the way in which the support network at ASC goes in many directions. Clients come for services, but stay to volunteer in many vital capacities. Our own extended family, the greater Amherst community, provides generous donations of food and clothing for clients, but ASC in turn helps townfolk by providing a mechanism for meaningful recycling of these items. This allows donors to express their own values in ways that would not be served by simply bringing these things to the local transfer station. Likewise, we benefit from the student volunteers who come to us from UMass and the local colleges, yet we also serve the colleges by functioning as an off-site classroom where students hone their skills and values as community members beyond the confines of academia. The list could go on and on. This kind of integration into the community, this family style give-and-take, is, I believe, exactly what Jane envisioned when she founded the Center 30 years ago. I think she would be proud and happy if she could see it now.
This incident brought home to me just how much the Survival Center serves what more traditionally would have been the role of neighbor or extended family to many of the people who pass through our doors. Ruth, our board president, remarked to me this week about the incredible moral support clients provide for each other when they drop in for coffee or lunch. Moreover, like family, people come here to "borrow a cup of sugar" from the food pantry or to get hand-me-downs for their children from the free store. We are sometimes asked to step in financially in small ways as well--with a bus ticket or to help pay for a mother's burial--although the ups and downs of our emergency fund often make this kind of support more difficult.
Also like family is the way in which the support network at ASC goes in many directions. Clients come for services, but stay to volunteer in many vital capacities. Our own extended family, the greater Amherst community, provides generous donations of food and clothing for clients, but ASC in turn helps townfolk by providing a mechanism for meaningful recycling of these items. This allows donors to express their own values in ways that would not be served by simply bringing these things to the local transfer station. Likewise, we benefit from the student volunteers who come to us from UMass and the local colleges, yet we also serve the colleges by functioning as an off-site classroom where students hone their skills and values as community members beyond the confines of academia. The list could go on and on. This kind of integration into the community, this family style give-and-take, is, I believe, exactly what Jane envisioned when she founded the Center 30 years ago. I think she would be proud and happy if she could see it now.
Saturday, April 28, 2007
End of semester
One of our great resources is our connection with the local colleges, particularly UMass. Many students come to us through programs such as "Citizen Scholars", IMPACT and "Dean's Book" classes. All three are organized around the concept of service-learning, designed to enrich students' traditional academic education with real-life experience through rich community-based interactions.
These volunteers play a unique and important role at the center. They tend to be very versatile, which means that they are often able to fill in unexpected gaps. They all seem to take their commitment to us seriously, and to enjoy it. I've found their energy to be unfailingly positive, and in our small space that positive energy is contagious!
This week I was brought back to my previous life as a professor as even ASC became subject to the end-of semester crunch. Students who have been volunteering since the fall began to prepare for their final service-learning class presentations. This process, which involved taking pictures, studying annual reports and interviewing staff, highlighted an additional benefit of having these students here. I realized in particular that their curiousity and willingness to ask questions help us to better articulate what we do, why we do it, and the obstacles that we face in carrying out our mission. As they learn, so do we.
Of course, the downside of this end-of-semester flurry is that we'll lose these students in a couple of weeks. We're looking forward to a new batch in the fall, but the long summer stretches ahead with volunteer gaps that need to be filled. Could we induce local faculty to step in during those months? Stay tuned...
These volunteers play a unique and important role at the center. They tend to be very versatile, which means that they are often able to fill in unexpected gaps. They all seem to take their commitment to us seriously, and to enjoy it. I've found their energy to be unfailingly positive, and in our small space that positive energy is contagious!
This week I was brought back to my previous life as a professor as even ASC became subject to the end-of semester crunch. Students who have been volunteering since the fall began to prepare for their final service-learning class presentations. This process, which involved taking pictures, studying annual reports and interviewing staff, highlighted an additional benefit of having these students here. I realized in particular that their curiousity and willingness to ask questions help us to better articulate what we do, why we do it, and the obstacles that we face in carrying out our mission. As they learn, so do we.
Of course, the downside of this end-of-semester flurry is that we'll lose these students in a couple of weeks. We're looking forward to a new batch in the fall, but the long summer stretches ahead with volunteer gaps that need to be filled. Could we induce local faculty to step in during those months? Stay tuned...
Saturday, April 21, 2007
First Impressions
Everyday I am newly impressed by the spirit and energy that pervades the center. On my first day, two weeks ago, I came in, met the staff and then sat at my desk and began the business of managing ASC. My office is in the middle of the kitchen, with windows rather than walls, so from the desk I get to see everything that's happening. When I came in at 8 AM, the kitchen was quiet and empty. As I sat at my desk sorting papers and making schedules, I began to wonder how the major activities of the day--hot lunch, distribution of fresh food and staples--were actually going to happen. The quiet continued. I started to get nervous that there was something I needed to do to jumpstart things that nobody had told me...
Then around 9 two volunteers walked in, said hello, and began sweeping and mopping. A few minutes later I heard an excited warning that carts of bread were rolling down the ramp into the kitchen, and then suddenly the whole place came to life. From every door, volunteers appeared and started chopping vegetables, cooking, bagging bread to be distributed, recycling cardboard, and sorting donated food and clothing. The day had really begun! This burst of positive and joyful energy, the incredible warmth and generosity of our volunteers and donors, is a powerful expression of the success of the center in fulfilling its mission of both feeding and empowering consumers. I feel lucky to have a job where I get to watch that come to life every morning.
Then around 9 two volunteers walked in, said hello, and began sweeping and mopping. A few minutes later I heard an excited warning that carts of bread were rolling down the ramp into the kitchen, and then suddenly the whole place came to life. From every door, volunteers appeared and started chopping vegetables, cooking, bagging bread to be distributed, recycling cardboard, and sorting donated food and clothing. The day had really begun! This burst of positive and joyful energy, the incredible warmth and generosity of our volunteers and donors, is a powerful expression of the success of the center in fulfilling its mission of both feeding and empowering consumers. I feel lucky to have a job where I get to watch that come to life every morning.
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
Hello!
This month I took on the job as director of the Amherst Survival Center. I am honored to have the privilege to lead such a great organization. I hope to use this blog to keep people up-to-date on what's happening at the Center as we embark upon our second thirty years!
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