Recovery Outreach Mission

Notes from the field: Observations, opinions, comments, revelations, rants epiphanies and everything you ever wanted to know about what goes on behind the scenes but never remebered the questions long enough to ask...

Executive Director's Log:  Stardate - Saturday May 8th 2009

Less than a year ago, Don Hedrick and I swore this project would never get bigger than two burned out yellowpage salesmen, a car full of blankets, and maybe a couple of the Yellow Book goddesses riding along on a cold winter's night to hook up some homeless folks.   No schedules, meetings, or comittees for us (famous last words.)   If you want to make God laugh, just tell him your plans...

Then in July of 2009 my accountant told us all the advantages of making the blanket runs and the recovery meetngs we have been doing on our own for years, into a church.  It sounded like a great way to do our small part in helping to de-fund the IRS, so we couldn't think of a compelling reason not to at least try it.

It was supposed to take 12 to 14 months to hear back. 

4 months later

November,( for those of us educated in a government school) 

The IRS gave us the green light.  Ok - so maybe they aren't quite as evil as I thought.  Not all of them anyway...I've been wrong plenty of times before.  But not as a church...we are a "religious charity".  OK, fine, whatever.  We'll take it.  I'm not exactly "pastor" material anyway, right...

So far, all I know about how to run a charity is this: 

If you need "A" you first have to have "B". 

To get "B" you first have to have "C". 

To get "C" you first need a whole lot of "A". 

Soooo - Now Don and I are sitting down with our first "professional" fund raiser who is telling us to brace for $5,000 in the bank by December, and $10,000 - $20,000 in the bank by January.    By mid November, Don's Dad has lost an epic battle with 3 separate forms of cancer, and my home in Oceanview lost an epic battle with the Atlantic Ocean and the Noreaster. 

Now my family and I are homeless... 

Still there's enough car cleaning money for 2 blanket runs, fed and served a little over 20 people total.

December 2009:  comes and goes with no money in the ROM account due to a professional fundraiser who won't fundraise.  I leave my job to clean cars full time, move into a new rental and Don leaves his job for one that actually issues a pay check.  Christmas Eve,  Don Misses his first Christmas Blanket run in 5 years.

Our fundraiser still swears the lack of a location is the only thing killing us.  We're mobile and broke.  Who has $5K a month for a lease?  1 blanket run on Christmas eve - drive around for over 5 hours - we find 4 people

January 2010 :  Comes and goes with still no money, but bi-weekly meetings with everyone else who doesn't have any money, but loves the cause and thinks the best thing we could do for a mobile aid project is get a fixed location.  Don is still MIA.  Then, Al midgett from the Va Noblemen steps up and donates enough for 2 blanket runs.  Two days later right when the weather report is callling for record snowfall, Sentara calls me out of nowhere with 150 blankets.  25 people serviced. 

Debbie and Shaman at Mystic Moon offer us free recovery meeting space.  A hell of a thing when I've contacted over 300 norfolk and Va Beach churches about meeting space and not one solitary church could even call me back to tell me to go visit lucifer in his living room.  3 Recovery meetings in January, Don is back in the game for all three. 

Applied for partnership with the Foodbank.  Applied for a booth outside the local Walmart.

February 2010:  More meetings and still more no money.  Don has a new job and can't run the recovery meetings anymore.  Tax return money is in, so we do 4 blanket runs with over 30 people fed and  served.  Bad economic times hit the homeless last (since they are already poor anyway) but the hardest, because now there is less out there for them to rely on.  Foodbank won't return my calls, and the lady in charge of saying yes or no is out of the office with an acute case of indecisivess.  Still no word from Walmart, won't return my calls about the booth.  The store manager has contracted a bizzare strain of  wheneveryoucomebyshe'sout-itis.

March 2010:  Fewer meetings and even less money.  Our fundraiser is working on a scheme to get ROM signed up in a mulitlevel marketing scam involving E-Books. I tell him not just no, but hell no.  I never hear from him again. 

5 months on the project -  He never raised a dime. 

Foodbank finally inspects our storage unit after Christina calls and demands to speak to a supervisor.   They tell us they will have a decision by March 17.  I'm running ads on craigslist for fundraisers and interviewing the 1 out of 4 people who actually show up to the interview. 

I have never inteviewed anyone for a job in my life.  I have absolutely no clue what to even ask.  Yet, I am still oddly astonished at the lack of professionalism and self respect of the people who respond to the ad.  No way I'm letting these train wrecks out into the field carrying my dream of the last 15 years.  This much I do know.  YIKES! 

So I hire Glen Bar, A retired Va Beach teacher with a heart of gold, and so many fund raising ideas he could write his own manual as our new "Director of Fund Raising" so he can hire fund raisers for me, and I can get back on mission.  Meanwhile, Christina comes up with an idea to put a sign in the ground outside a local shelter after hours.  We pilot the "help point" program and it rocks.  At least 7 people at the "help point" every week for three weeks, plus the drive bys.  Over 30 people fed.

April 2010:  Still no returned phone calls from Walmart or the Foodbank.  Pastor Keith at Shiloh Baptist calls me and wants us to run a meeting every other Thursday at his church.  I say yes, (Even though I no longer have someone to run the meetings since Don went MIA).  Let's start the First week of May, after Easter.  

I meet with two grant writers who believe they can get me grant money sometime in the next 24 years. (Toss a penny in the wishing well...) 

Then we get our second guardian angel...Roni at Park Place Baptist in Norfolk responds to the craigslist ad, and invites us to set up shop at the church free of charge. 

We now have a location!!

Glen hires four fund raisers.  I cash in three of my markers and get three guest speakers to come in and train our new troups monday morning.  All three speakers show up.  None of the new hires are anywhere to be found.  A crow sandwich with a mortification salad and embarrassment soup for the fatman today.

Enough car cleaning money for one blanket run.  6 people fed and served.

Still no word from Don, my best friend, and the guy who started on the journey with me in a car full of blankets on Christmas Eve 2004.  No returned calls from the Foodbank, no returned calls from Walmart.

May 2010:  Had to move the meetings at Shiloh to first week in June, so we could focus on the meetings at our new HQ.  Our first fundraising event raises $382 - Cashola night at Shore Break Pizza.  We have hired 3 new fund raisers.  We ratcheted up the craigslist rheortic and politely asked that they actually be qualified.  hmmm.  These three acutally showed up and new the difference between shinola and what's been in the ROM account for the last 8 months... 

I've called over 200 businesses who were spending at least $500 to advertise  for open positions and invite them to a FREE job fair. 

6 RSVP'ed.   

Thankfully, The US Marines will be there! ooooorrrraaahhh!!

The rest requested that I send them some information so they could join ranks with the Foodbank and Walmart, and never return my phone calls. 

Still no word from Don, Walmart, or the Foodbank.

Blanket run next week. 

Note to self: Leave the event planning to Glen,and stick to the blankets.

 - Chris Martineau

Friday May 21st, 2010  10pm:  Took Glenn Barr (My Director of Fundraising) and his wife Karen out on their first blanket run tonight.  We started at PPB (Park Place Baptist)where I had a help point sign in the ground since 9am this morning, and not a soul showed up to even bum a smoke.  So we loaded up Glen's suburban and went to the second help point on Lafayette and Dunkirk, shot the breeze, watched the sun go down, and just as we were loading up to head to oceanview, and thinking we might have finally cured homelessness - Calvin showed up, wondering wear I had been for the last 5 weeks.  We tightened up him and a lady named Tracy with some blankets and food, and he tipped us off that the haunt to visit was the bus stop on Princess Anne and Monticello. 

We blew through 14 food packs and as many blankets and bottles of water in less than 10 minutes, and had to go back to head quarters to get the rest.  Came back, and served  two more people. I remember Cheryl,  lady well into her sixtees, who finally smiled after we gave her a second bottle of water, and I remeber Debbie and her fifteen year old daghter, wondering where they could sleep safely tonight.  We wished them luck and told them we would be back soon. 

Off to Portsmouth, on High Street, behind the Oasis shelter, locked up tight for then night.  We found Amos with the green hawaiian shirt, and Tony - who remembered us from Christmas eve 2 years ago behind the KFC in an alley on King Street, with at  least a dozen more people with no where to sleep and nothingot eat.  We  handed out the remaining 15 of the 32 food packs and another 15 blankets.   

Amos smiled and shook our hands because we not only asked him his name, but remembered it.  "The greatest disease is to be nobody to anybody"  We got told what a blessing we were, and what a good thing we were doing. 

Tonight - Somewhere some guy who didn't want to write a $35 dollar check to sponsor a needy family is watching "reality TV" on his flat screen, drinking a beer, and is pissed off and disappointed about the economy.

Too bad he can't be Glen Barr, five minutes after he walks into his house tonight, and realizes how truly blessed he really is.

32 food packs, 35 blankets, a pallet of cheap bottled water, and over 30 people who won't be cold or hungry on our watch tonight. 

You can't get that on ESPN

Peace - Chris Martineau

Monday August 2nd 2010 - Glen Barr

Congratulations and high praise to my fellow ROM workers who braved yesterday's elements to provide some relief and hope to our homeless neighbors. Sheepishly, I admit, I was home in a group hug with my dogs, cats and teenage stepdaughter who are all less than fond of lightning bolts landing around our home. But there's the rub: HOME. We were in a home, with shelter from the storm.
ROM's "Heat Beaters" are also ROM "Storm Busters” Quite a maiden voyage for Teresa, Scotty (BOOM BOOM) and their friend. Well done. Just goes to prove: Weather doesn't care Whether you have shelter from the storm. Good people do. Join us either as a staff member, volunteer, or donor.
Meanwhile, was home talking to a woman on the phone. Despite receiving a brief respite from the storm last night, she is living in her car. She has been living in her car since July 5th. When I pressed her about which, if any, organizations that she had contacted, she tersely versed the places and people she called like a well groomed telemarketer. She actually cut off my question, no doubt having heard it before. I felt like the customer who, when calls the cable company for help, gets that nauseating first question: "Is your cable plugged in?"
She is over THAT question. Who can blame her? She is even MORE over the response: No rooms, no beds, no roofs, and no shelter from the storm. No shelter from HER storm.
I told her I would get back to her today. I will. I just do not know if either one of us will like the answer. I know what I want the answer to be: 'Sure, we have more than enough shelters in our surrounding cities for you to take refuge from the storm." But that's not what I can tell her. There "...is no room in the Inn..."
There are numbers! We have plenty of those to hand out. “Sorry, Miss, take a number...Here's the number of...but you will have to take another number to talk to someone who will, in turn, give you another number."
The number "2" might as well be the number/symbol for infinity. When you are the ONE standing in a storm or living in a car, the next "NUMBER" is ONE too many.
So, I will make my calls, and "get back to you, Dana." By the way, her name is Dana.
One more small detail: The lady's name is Dana. Dana, has been living in her car since July 5th....With her THREE children, ages....8...6....and 4
Want some numbers that really mean something? 8...6....and 4....I just gave you three.  Soooo, after a disenchanting two days of trying to get shelter for Dana and her three young kids, the best I could do was get her some space on the floor of an overcrowded shelter. Either to her credit, or her prideful shame (I haven't quite settled that one in my mind) she declined the offering of a shelter's floor. ...The old TV show, Naked City, sums it up: "There are eight million stories in the Naked City. This has been one of them." ...
So, Karen, Jennifer, and I went down to a place in Portsmouth to try and give some brief comfort. Did I go soothe my wounded warrior wings or help my fellow man? Maybe a little of both. Thirty or so bottles of water, snacks, and rain ponchos. My spirit was both rekindled and saddened at this seemingly endless human line of despair. But we will prevail. Hope you can do your part. Wherever you live, look into the shadows. There will be hands reaching up. Take hold of your brother, sister, and their children's hands

 Monday August 2nd -Chris Martineau - Notes from the Executive Director

 Taking this from the back of a van and an over stuffed living room to a full time mission has been a lot like giving birth to a bowling ball.

 It's felt good to get back on mission, and I have collected a small handful of people who are finally really realizing and experiencing that these are real people.

It's not about 2200 homeless vets in the tide water area, or 1/5 being children,  You can't care for statistics  you can't minister to facts and figures, and you can't make a difference to a set of numbers.

Facts and figures don't get hungry, or cold, or wet, or die of heat stroke in an abandoned house or parked car.  Statistics don't get run over and crushed to death sleeping on a beach

 Dana and her 3 young children do. 

And yet, so much time is wasted (in my opinion) chatting about it on facebook and blogging about it here.  The real work doesn't happen on line.  It happens on Monticello and Princess Anne in a rainstorm.

It happens behind the Oasis shelter on High Street  in a 100+ degree heat wave.

The Internet is a fine place to spend hour after our collecting supportive email and sympathetic commentary from people who will never be willing to donate more than a couple of sentences on a profile page .

If one man can make a difference , then our next mission, and our ultimate goal should be - not how many homeless people we can feed, but how many people can we tear away from a computer screen, or a flat screen for a few hours, get them up off their couches and their wallets, and get them out where they can actually meet and interact with some of these "statistics".

How many of us lead lives of quiet, climate controlled, electronically overstimulated desperation?

 How many of our Facebook - social network friends spend all their energy hating their jobs, cursing their lack of square footage, and pounding their coffee tables and keyboards wondering why someone else wont do something about their situation, then don't have any time or energy left over to hand out a blanket, write a $20 check or ask everyone at the office to all chip in 5 bucks to help out the guy on the corner outside get something to eat and a clean pair of socks?

I started by passing out blankets once a month and thinking - wow, how cool would it be to do this for a living?  

 Now it's navigating state and federal regulations, church politics, getting stood up for 4 out of 5 fund raiser job interviews at the office, making sure we have enough funds available for rent, and ink cartidges after commission checks are cut, hiring outside trainers to present to the 4 out of 10 fund raisers who actually show up for meetings, updating websites, emailing newsletters, filing tax forms, and wondering why all the people who emailed and blogged their support and encouragement won't show up for a blanket run on Wednesday night.

In July of 2009, two burned out Yellowpage ad sales guys fed 25 people on a Friday night.

 In July of 2010 A car detailer, his girl friend, a retired school teacher and his wife, a navy wife, a waiter, a jewler,  and a Romanian Army officer with Nato fed almost 100 people over three blanket runs

But I also recieved two emails from homeless single mothers with small children -  begging us to help them find a place to stay. My response as the Executive Director of Recovery Outreach Mission?   "Sorry, we don't even have an Inn for there to be no room at".

 And yet, with all of the years failures, and missed goals, and disappointments, challenges, and despite a long and debilitating list of goals and milestones we have failed to achieve, people we had to turn away due to lack of funding - 25 people huddled under covered bus stops in a deluge of a rain storm and told us we how much of a blessing we were, and what a miracle it is that we showed up.

 Strangers with nothing got soaked hugging 4 crazy strangers in a old and tired SUV loaded with blankets and zip lock bags filled with granola bars and Vienna sausages that ran out way too quickly.

It's incredibly unfair how much of a blessing people with nothing can be to those of us with so much more than they have.

 A year ago - I had to beg for space in other people's garages to hold food and blankets left over after Don and I made the blanket runs.

 This week I became the head of yet another organization that had to turn people away who were standing in line in the rain waiting, and wound up with the same nothing they had before we drove up.

We very simply have to do a better job at what we are trying to do.