Franciscan Outreach Association 

1645 W. LeMoyne Street, Chicago, IL 60622

Telephone (773)278-6724 

 

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What's New Archives for 

August 6, 2002 to October 29, 2002

For the week of October 29 - Highlights of a Wonderful  Evening

    Our Fall Benefit Dinner was a smashing success! One-Hundred and Sixty-Eight guests enjoyed

• fine food & drink

• Celtic music

• scenic table decorations

• lively company

• an exciting Silent Auction with a variety of prizes

• a few words from Sharon, one of our guests,  about her journey, and

• a talk by himself, Fr. Andrew Greeley.

     Fr. Greeley's talk captured the essence of our work at Franciscan Outreach. After starting with (what else?) a story, he talked about St. Francis of Assisi's insight that every part of creation is good - a radical idea for his time (and perhaps even for our own) when the material world was considered evil and pagan. St. Francis' Canticle of the Creatures, in which he calls all sorts of created things Brother and Sister, was a reflection of his insight that every created thing emanates from God. He told about G.K. Chesterton, the author, who wrote about how St. Francis treated everyone and everything with great respect.

     He related to all this to the work of Franciscan Outreach.

From his tour of the shelter and talk with us recently, he could see that we treat all of our guests as with respect. We don't force them to participate in religious services before they can come in to sleep or eat. We don't even require that they participate in case management services. Rather, we treat everyone as an individual who already possesses dignity and self-worth. "St. Francis," he said, "would be proud of Franciscan Outreach." 

    We're very grateful to Fr. Greeley for highlighting such a critical part of our mission. Thanks also to all who attended or sent in a donation. All funds raised after the cost of the dinner are used for our programs.

     Click here for photos from the Fall Dinner.

For the weeks of October 15 & 22  - Fine Prizes Await You at The Fall Dinner

Our silent auction at our Fall Dinner is bigger and better this year. Some of the prizes you can bid on include:

• a Currier & Ives Snow Village, with two cottages and three ceramic trees

• a 6" Waterford Crystal Bowl (Killarney pattern) donated by C.I.E. Tours International

• Blackhawks tickets

• an Elvis basket and poster

• Chicago Bulls tickets

• a brushed silver tea set and an assortment of tea

• a Franciscan basket

• a weekend stay at a condo in downtown Chicago

• a landscape painting

• a Halloween basket

• a one year membership to the Irish American Heritage Center

• restaurant gift certificates

• tickets to a play about St. Francis, portraying him as if he had arrived in the modern world, at the Rogue Theater

• and more!

As usual, the decoration on each table will be awarded to someone at the table. Its something special this year!

All that and Andrew Greeley too!

Come to our Fall Dinner. You can order tickets online!

For the weeks of October 1 & 7 - Our Fall Benefit Dinner: Growing Rainbows

     You can charge your tickets on-line through our secure portal (Payflow Link) at donate on-line. Then send an email to Carin telling her how many tickets you are ordering.

     Can you help promote the dinner to your parish or group? You can paste the following into an email to the person in charge of communications for your organization ...

Fr. Andrew Greeley will be speaking at the Fall Benefit dinner for Franciscan Outreach Association on Monday, October 28 at the Union League Club downtown. Mark your calendars for an interesting evening! Tickets are $150 each or a table of 8 for $1,100.  The theme for the dinner, called "Growing Rainbows" is Irish! For tickets, call Carin at Franciscan Outreach (773) 278-6724 or order on line at www.franoutreach.org/whatsnew.htm. Proceeds will benefit Franciscan House of Mary & Joseph and the other programs at Franciscan Outreach.

Thanks! Hope to see you there!

For the week of September 24 - We need shelter volunteers! 

Would you like to volunteer at our shelter? We have openings on weekend nights for volunteers who can make sandwiches, pass out cups of soup, a lend a hand. A willingness to reach out to our homeless guests with food and a smile are all that are required.

Currently, Old St. Pat's Church staffs the shelter volunteer positions during the week, but all weekend days are open.

Can your group commit to volunteering on a certain day each month? We only need three or four people. How about...

the first Saturday of the month?

the third Saturday of each month?

the second Sunday of the month?

the fourth Sunday of the month?

the fifth Saturday, whenever there is one?

Training is provided. Perhaps you want to try it out first and then ask your group to schedule a regular day. Visit our Volunteer Part Time at the Shelter page for more information. To volunteer either by yourself or with a group, our volunteer who is coordinating the part-time volunteers at the shelter, will respond to you by phone or email.

You can help make the day brighter for approximately 250 homeless persons in just a few hours!

For the week of September 17 - What will it take to reinstate the Weekend Dinner Service?

     In order to reinstate the weekend dinner service at the Marquard Center, we need an Assistant Manager for the kitchen. This person would work on the weekends as the Manager on duty and on certain other days during the week helping to coordinate the activity at the Marquard Center.

     We'll be placing the following ad:

Assistant Manager of Soup Kitchen

     Dining room for the homeless in Chicago needs full-time assistant manager to coordinate dinner service on weekends and certain weekdays, supervise volunteers, and handle some administrative matters. It’s a hands-on opportunity involving direct contact with the homeless and caring volunteers. Interpersonal and organizational skills a must. Write Fr. Larry Janezic, Franciscan Outreach Assn., 1645 W. LeMoyne, Chicago, IL 60622, fax to (773) 278-7120

     However, we can't hire for this position until we feel that we can financially support the salary over the long run. We've set a goal of having $20,000 in income from new sources before we will hire the assistant manger. Although the salary is more than $20,000, we want to completely sure that we have most of it in hand. We've set a goal of $50,000 in new income before all three positions that are subject to the hiring freeze can be filled.

     Since we're optimistic that with God's help and the help of those he might inspire we can reach the goal, we're taking a leap of faith and starting to collect resumes.  

     If you know of any person or group who might be able to help us meet our financial goal, we'd be happy to talk to them or make a presentation about what we do. Contact Fr. Larry if you can help us reach out to people who may want to help with this good work.

     If you know of anyone who might be interested in this position, have them contact Fr. Larry.

     Pray that everything works out and so we can start feeding hungry people on Saturdays and Sundays again!

For the week of September 10 - An On-Line Fishing Contest to Benefit the Homeless!

     Now through the wonders of modern technology, you can enter a fishing contest on line! You'll be 

Fishing for Friends

when you email your family and friends to tell them how they can help the homeless right from their computer through Franciscan Outreach's programs.

     For the contest, we'll give you the text of  an email you can copy and send. The text has a link to our Summer letter that tells what's happening here and asks for help in reinstating our weekend dinner service at the Marquard Center.

     If any of your family or friends make a donation through our website and send an email to us that says you sent them, we'll enter your name into our Fishing for Friends contest.

     We'll be awarding two prizes (a basket of photo frames!), one to each of the following:

(1) whoever catches the highest number of donations, and

(2) whoever reels in the highest dollar amount.

     You can read the contest rules here. The contest is also open by mail - 150 cards have been requested so far.

     The contest is over by September 30, so send your emails today!  To start fishing, read our Summer Letter, the contest rules, and the sample email. Together we can help reinstate the weekend dinner service at the Marquard Center.

For the week of September 3 - Announcing a new collaboration: Chicago Housing for Health Partnership

Franciscan Outreach plans to participate in a new collaboration of 14 social service providers that will benefit homeless persons who have chronic medical  conditions. This project is called "Chicago Housing for Health Partnership: Getting Housed, Staying Healthy."

The project partners believe that when homeless individuals with chronic medical conditions are able to focus their energies on healing and maintaining their health, rather than struggling to find a place to sleep each night, their health outcomes will improve, they will stay housed, and the cost to society of their care will be lessened.

Examples of the chronic medical condition that would qualify a person for this program include AIDS, cancer, seizure disorder, severe asthma, and renal disease.

To that end, the partnership will implement and evaluate three main interventions:

• Expedited Hospital Discharge - Participants will benefit from a coordinated system of discharge into one of several  specialized housing facilities. For those who are discharged to Franciscan House of Mary & Joseph, this will mean a reserved bed at our overnight shelter with transportation to a day program hosted by Interfaith House, one of the project participants.

• Housing First - Stable housing will be facilitated the addition of at least 120 new units of permanent or subsidized housing by the project collaborators.

• Specialized Case Management Services - Specialized case management services will be delivered through a System Integration Team, which will be a group of case managers that work together as a team to see that the special needs of the individual participants are met. Franciscan Outreach plans to have two case managers from this team working at the shelter.

The steps in the process are as follows:

• when a homeless participants is released from one of the partner health institutions, he or she will be referred to one of the interim housing partners (one of which is Franciscan Outreach).

• At the interim housing site, the participants will receive assertive case management services that are designed to find the person a more permanent housing arrangement and then arrange whatever services they need to maintain their housing and make their lives better.

• Once the participant is in permanent housing, other project partners will provide "wrap around" social services that will meet the individual's particular needs.

It is hoped that this project will help the participants end their homelessness, stay housed, and experience better health. It is expected that the overall cost of providing services to an individual in this kind of "housing first" program will be lower than the cost of providing the array of emergency services (emergency rooms, shelters, public facilities, day programs, etc.) that the person would use during that same time period.

This is a three year demonstration project that is designed to serve 250 to 300 individuals during that time. The project will begin a small pilot phase soon. A research partner will keep track of the outcomes so that, if the process is successful, it can be duplicated for other sub-populations of homeless individuals.

Franciscan Outreach has received preliminary approval for a two-year grant from HUD for 80% of the salary of the two new case managers it plans to hire. Final approval is expected by the end of the year. We'll still need to raise the other 20%.

Keep supporting Franciscan Outreach with your donations. Together, we can find new ways of ending homelessness for the men and women who line up at our doors.

For the week of August 27 - Now offering tours!

If you're a donor or potential donor, you now have the chance to see our two program sites in person! 

Once each month, we will be offering a tour of our facilities to visitors and donors. We'll start at the Marquard Center soup kitchen and then go over to our shelter. You'll have the chance to hear about our programs and ask any questions you may have. These tours are designed for those who'd like to know more about where their money goes and how we operate our programs. Come see what we're all about!

The next tour is scheduled for Thursday, September 12 at 5:30 p.m. Email Diana or Fr. Larry

Hope to see you!

For the week of August 20 - A new page - our Calendar!

Starting this week

its worth a peek

to see what's up

where the homeless sup.

By clicking here

you'll be a dear.

You'll stay in tune

in every moon.

Visit our newest addition to our web site - our Calendar!

For the week of August 13 - Where do we get the money?

In case you were wondering ... our funding comes from a variety of sources. In 2001, according to our audited financial statements, our funding came from the following sources.

* General donations includes donations from individuals and churches, as well as corporate donations of less than $5,000 which are not grants. We do not receive any United Way funds or funds from memberships.

This year, our budget is $828,757. That means we need to increase our income - but it's not as easy as it sounds!  Please help us by making a donation.  Which category can you help with? We're a small organization - so your donation will make a difference.

Click here to make an on-line donation. E-mail Diana if you have any suggestions for a category other than donations from individuals.

For the week of August 6 - Half-year Numbers from the Case Managers

At FOA, we have full time case mangers who meet with our guests to help them build a better life for themselves. For the first six months of 2002, our case managers...

• made 3,182 contacts with a guest

• talked with 716 different guests

• engaged in 3,993 different activities with them (for example, outreach, intake, goal setting, referral, networking with other agencies, or follow up)

• dealt with 4,025 different topics (the most common were permanent housing - 812 times, employment - 682 times, public aid - 431 times, mental health - 384 times, and identification cards - 370 times)

In addition, our collaborating partners, the STAIRS Program of Chicago Health Outreach that comes to our Marquard Center of Wednesdays, talked with an additional 195 clients in in 522 different meetings.

...and that's just for the first six months!

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