January 11, 2006 to April 26, 2006

For April 26 - Come to our Spring Benefit Dinner

The surface of the ocean

hides a whole new world

waiting to be discovered

by those who try to find it

With loving patience

we help homeless men and women

discover opportunities

they never knew they had

and strength they never knew existed

Join us on Wednesday, May 10 at Chicago Yacht Club for our Spring Benefit Dinner - Oceans of Opportunity Click the invitation for more info.

Hope to see you there - its always beautiful at the Yacht Club! For a few photos from one of our previous dinners at Chicago Yacht Club, click here.

We have lots of great silent auction prizes but need a few more.

Call Diana if you have anything to donate.

For April 11, 2006 - Our Dining Room a Church?

       Last Friday I served dinner at the Marquard Center soup kitchen with some people from my parish. The menu was tuna sandwiches, refried beans, fruit, bread, and milk. Oh yes - and chocolate eyeballs donated by a Halloween candy manufacturer.

       Early in the dinner hour two guests started arguing. Nothing major, more like a loud discussion. One guest used a swear word and the other said to him "What are you cussing in a church for?"

       Near the end of the dinner hour, a women was talking to someone and said "Oops, I can't be talking about that here. This is a church."

       In the nine years I've been working here its never occurred to me that the guests think of our dining room as a church. It certainly doesn't look like a church - the dining room used to be the gymnasium of a grade school. We have some religious decorations - a picture of the last supper, a banner from a street pole with a picture of St. Francis on it, a small crucifix on the wall. We also share a court yard with the Lutheran church next door. But we don't hold any religious services for our guests. That night, I don't even think we said grace, unless I just missed it.

       I've always known that a lot of praying goes on around here - not group prayer, but the kind that arises out of desperation and need. Guests pray that they'll get into the shelter at night and live to see another day. They pray that they'll have the strength to kick a substance abuse habit and that they'll find a place to live. Our case managers often pray that they can help them achieve their goals. Our guests pray for us too - they tell us so. And our donors pray for our guests and us - they tell us too. And I certainly pray all the time that people will be generous in their donations so that we can keep all of our programs open. We also have Mass for our donors at least once a month. Yet the amount of prayer that goes on in a place doesn't make it a church. 

       St. Francis of Assisi was recorded as saying "the world is my cloister" (which must be the origin of the phrase "the world is my oyster" - ha!). While monastic religious orders separated themselves from the world in order to keep its evil influences away and focus on God alone, St. Francis looked at all of creation as speaking to him of God.  To him, everything could draw him closer to God - earthworms, birds, lepers, poor persons he met along the road, the brothers with whom he lived, and even Sister Death. (For a good discussion of this read Chapter 3 of the wonderful book Franciscan Prayer, by Sr. Ilia Delio.)

       Even though he saw God in everything, churches were important to St Francis. He and his brothers would say a certain prayer every time they saw a church in the distance and, some say, even when they saw random things that looked like a cross. (The prayer is the  "Testament Prayer" at  http://www.franciscans.org.au/spirituality/prayers.html.) Yet his prayer wasn't limited to churches. At the end of his life it was said of him that he was not so much praying as having himself become a prayer. Maybe even though we don't hold prayer services for our guests we have in some way become prayer. For both those who eat and those who serve, what we do here is an expression of our gratitude for the gifts God has given us, a statement of our need, and a simple entering into relationship with each other that's filled with the presence of God. 

       When the guests called us a church it also reminded me of when I first went on a Christ Renews His Parish retreat almost 20 years ago. When I got to know the people there and saw their faith, I realized for the first time that "church" wasn't a building or the services that were held there. "Church" is really the people - people who choose to have faith - not perfect in holiness or free from struggles but simply living their lives as best they can in contact with others who are trying to do the same. For the first time I saw why being part of a church was so important. Perhaps it was no coincidence that the people I was volunteering with on Friday were people I recently met through the Kingdom Weekend retreat at my parish. After discovering "church" in one another we were out being church for the men and women who needed a place to eat that night.

       You can join us in this sacred work of being church by volunteering at the dining room or the shelter or by making a much needed contribution for the cost of operating our programs. You too can be "church" for the homeless of Chicago.

~ Diana Faust, Assistant Executive Director

March 23 - Pooch Walk for the Homeless - Want to Volunteer?

Pooch Walk for the Homeless 2006

 This year’s Pooch Walk for the Homeless will take place on Saturday, September 23, 2006 at Lake Katherine in Palos Heights. This is a 1.5 mile walk around the beautiful Lake Katherine Nature Center with your dog (or without) to raise funds for the homeless. Proceeds from the Pooch Walk support the programs of Franciscan Outreach Association, which include the Marquard Center soup kitchen, Franciscan House overnight shelter for 250 persons, and case managers who sit down with people one-on-one to help them build a better life. The Pooch Walk is a fun family event - we have the walk plus games, contests, a silent auction, photos, food and more. For more info see our page on last year's Pooch Walk.

               Volunteers are needed to help in advance of the event with publicity, supplies, food, games, goodie bags, youth group coordination, sponsorships, and the silent auction. We’re having our first volunteer meeting on Wednesday, April 5, at 7:00 pm at the new Tinley Park Public Library in Meeting Room A. We’ll have a breakdown of the tasks that need to be done so you can volunteer for something specific. We'll also have the video that the local cable station made so you can see just what last year's event looked like. To participate, contact Diana Faust at (773) 278-6724 or diana@franoutreach.org.

For March 8 - Recovery Groups Helping Guests at FOA

"Recovering from what," you may ask? Substance abuse. In October we announced the beginning of Recovery Groups at Franciscan House and the Marquard Center. You can read the details here. They've been happening for six months, now - so how are they going?

Here are some facts:

• Since September, 2005, 110 different persons have attended a recovery group

• 33% are women, while 66% are men - an interesting fact since 85% of our overall guests are men and only 15% are women

• We've served 95 lunches since January 1, 2005

• We've made 24 referrals to an in-patient substance abuse program

Here are some true stories about how the groups are helping...

Guest A - This homeless guest joined a recovery group at the shelter. Our case managers helped him obtain an ID and a social security card. Then we helped him enter a detox program. After the program he came back to the recovery groups and the AA meeting we have. Then our case managers got him housed at a group facility. He has a job now and is working with a case manager on finding a regular apartment.

Guest B - This is a couple who came from Ohio. They were both staying at our shelter. The wife had a drug addiction. The husband did not. Both were homeless. The husband realized how significantly the wife's drug addiction was affecting him and joined a recovery group. He realized that he couldn't change her and began to take steps to improve his own life. He got a job with a trucking company. He got housing and re-connected with his son from a previous marriage. We don't know where the wife is at this time.

Guest C - A woman in her mid 20's and her husband were at our shelter. She was pregnant and drinking and using drugs. She entered a recovery group and is now clean and sober. We're all waiting for the birth of a baby who will now have a better start at life.

Guest D - A homeless man who was coming to our Wednesday group. We helped him enter detox. Through a referral source we helped him get into a halfway house. He now has a job and will continue to stay at the half-way house for a while. 

These are just a few of the people our recovery groups have helped. Pray for them and support this good work with your donations.

For March 2 - Lent - What's it All About?

Yesterday was Ash Wednesday. When my daughter went to school at her public high school with ashes on her forehead, most of the kids she saw had no idea why she had dirt on her forehead. So here are a few little basics about Lent. Feel free to copy and past the location of this page, which is  www.franoutreach.org/whatsnew.htm . (Next week it will be at www.franoutreach.org/whats_new_archives_21.htm ) and send it to a friend who might not know what Lent is all about.

Is Lent already a part of your life? Here are a few ways to make it more meaningful for you this year. (We especially endorse the ones that deal with helping the poor...)

Yesterday, March 1, Catholics around the world celebrated Ash Wednesday. This is the start of a 40 day time period in which they make an extra effort to turn away from sin and build their relationship with God and their neighbor. A note in the newsletter of the Crystal Lake Secular Franciscan Fraternity captures the spirit of Lent. It says...

A clean heart create for me, O God, and a steadfast spirit renew within me.  ~Psalm 51    As we begin this Lenten journey, let us embrace the joy that is ahead.  Lent has been called the Church’s retreat.  It is our spiritual spring cleaning, a chance to get dusty, to remember how we made that mess, and to clean it up.  It is a chance to remember our journey with the Lord and join in with a full heart.  It takes effort and discipline to track down our spiritual dust bunnies, but the reward is the accomplishment, the refreshment of the soul and the divine joy that comes of choosing, once again, to walk the Lord’s path.  May He guide us in His way to the life that we are to live, here and until the day of our Resurrection. 

Three ways to take make your turning to the Lord something that is real and not just a good intention is to do the three things that the church asks of us in Lent: prayer, fasting, and almsgiving.

In prayer we seek to build our relationship with God. Catholics, like other Christians, see God as a personal God, one who is concerned about us personally. Prayer builds that relationship, just like spending time with a friend builds a friendship. Prayer can involve directing your thoughts to God during the day, using written prayers such as the Our Father, using a technique such as Centering prayer (see www.centeringprayer.com/frntpage.htm), using spiritual reading to inspire you to talk to God, participating in church services, or simply speaking to God from your heart without using words. If you direct whatever you do or think or say to God, it is prayer. Hide nothing from him. Begin with who you are at any given moment and go from there.

In fasting a person who is seeking God practices self-denial. The point is not to punish one's self but to shift the focus from you own needs to those of others. Fasting from food and drink is one way, but fasting from things or behaviors that keep one from God is good too. It allows us to step out of our self-centered world-view for a moment and open our eyes to others. Have you been hungry lately? Once when we asked one of our guests for a comment he said something to the effect of: I thank God for this place. Sometimes I eat just once a day, when I come here. Wow - how often do you eat just once a day? Being hungry can open your eyes to others.

Almsgiving is the sharing of one's resources with the poor. Its all well and good to pray and to fast, but something is missing from our response to God if we don't love our neighbor. As Jesus says in Matthew 25, verse 31+, we will be held accountable for helping the homeless and hungry.  http://www.usccb.org/nab/bible/matthew/matthew25.htm

There are several ways you share your resources with the homeless through the ministry of Franciscan Outreach this Lent...

• If your Catholic parish participates in Operation Rice Bowl, you can designate 25% of what you collect for Franciscan Outreach. The balance goes to your diocese for local and national programs. Contact Diana or your diocese for more info. See more at http://orb.crs.org/catalog.cfm

• You can make a donation, either on-line or by printing our donation page and mailing it in. You can designate your donation for our shelter, soup  kitchen, case management program, or for the general costs of operating our programs.

• You can buy something we need for our programs.  Look at our Wish List

• You can collect items we need. See our list of commonly used items at the  Wish List.

• You can donate a prize for our Spring Dinner at Chicago Yacht Club on May 10, 2006. We need gift cards for our raffle tickets and prizes for our silent auction. Contact Diana if you would like to contribute something.

• You can care about the homeless. Subscribe to our newsletter. Sign up for What's New. Sometimes just learning the facts is the place to begin. You can also contact us to see how you can help. We'll find a way that works for you.

Whatever you do, your efforts will be much appreciated by us and by the people who benefit from your generosity - the homeless of Chicago

For February 17 - Loop Case Management Project Underway ~ Date for Spring Dinner

The day has finally arrived! Our Chicago Loop Case Management Project has begun! On Tuesday, February 14 (yes, Valentines Day) two of our case managers, Ambryn Melius and Heather Winquist began working in Chicago's downtown area as case managers. Ambryn and Heather are now working out offices at First United Methodist Temple ("Chicago Temple") at Washington & Clark. Next week they'll start at St. Peter's Church at 110 W. Madison. These are our first case management services that are not held at our dining room or shelter.

On Tuesday Ambryn, Heather, and our Director of Case Management Services, Nick Benedetto, met with guests at Chicago Temple's bag lunch program. There were a few familiar faces, but most of the guests were new to our case managers. The case managers made a few immediate social service connection but mostly spent their time saying hello to the guests and getting to know them.

Ambryn is the Lead Case Manager of the project. Heather is our Housing Specialist. Both of their positions are funded by the Chicago Department of Housing under the Streets to Home Initiative. Heather's goal is to move persons into permanent housing as quickly as possible and to help them keep their housing once they get it. Ambryn will provide general case management services and identify those whom Heather can help find housing.

Laptop computers were provided through connections and donations made by members of Lawyers United for the Homeless, a special interest group connected with Franciscan Outreach. So when you hear about the good work that our Loop case managers are doing, know that lawyers have a direct hand in making it all possible!

In our first week, we can already see that the need for case management is very high. Many of the people we talked to were not aware of the basic services that are available to the homeless of Chicago.  If we had enough funds to hire another general case manager we could certainly put him or her to work!

We'll keep you posted about the progress of this exciting program!

February 2, 2006 - Case Management Statistics for 2005

The 2005 Case Management Statistics are in!  What can you learn from them?

• What issues did clients seek help with most often? Was it clothing, food, medical care, mental health care, or housing? find out

• Where do most of our case management clients come from? The soup kitchen, shelter, or walk-ins at the Marquard Center offices? find out

• How many separate one-on-one client meetings did our case managers hold with a guest? 1,000? 3,000? 6,000? find out

• How many people attended our new Recovery group? find out

• What was the average age of those requesting an HIV test?  25, 35, 45 or 55?  find out

• Did we provide more HIV tests or Hepatitis C tests? find out

We have a new page on our website that's all about our case management statistics. Visit it at www.franoutreach.org/CaseManagementStatistics.htm   We also have a page about our collaborations at www.franoutreach.org/CollaborationStats.htm