The Thanksgiving Miracle

Our dear directoress, Barb Lescher, wasn't even going to go out on Thanksgiving of 2011. So many other homeless agencies, with more funds than we have, put on so many special events on Thanksgiving and Christmas that there are few if any homeless actually on the streets. But at the prompting of the Holy Spirit, and armed with a suitcase full of socks, she did go out, turning down a request from a friend to go Christmas shopping instead. She didn't find many- but at dusk, she found one man bedding down for the night in the doorway of a closed business. She gave him some socks, then asked "Is there anything else you need?" knowing that she didn't have anything in her suitcase other than socks. He politely refused, and she left him to finish making his sleeping bag up for the night. A half block further on, he comes running after her. He says, he had a chance at a job with housing, but they turned him down for safety reasons- because he didn't have steel toed boots. If she could get him some steel toed boots- he could get a job and get off the streets. So Barb calls her friend, and asks if she still wants to go shopping. Thrilled, she picks Barb up, and they go out to the Wallmart on 82nd, which is opening early for Black Friday at 10pm. They pull into the parking lot at 9:50, the doors are already open, the parking lot is very full, so Barb's friend circles while she goes in. The Greeter directed her to the proper department, and 7 minutes later, she was approaching the checkout desks with the steel toed boots. Which is when she saw the crowd and though "OH, I'm going to be here a couple more hours just trying to check out." At that moment, a checkout lady came on shift, and signaled to Barb to skip the lines and come to her desk. 8 minutes total to get the boots. She still had to wait 20 minutes for her friend to circle the lot, but in only one circle- they had the boots and were headed back to downtown. Because of those boots, one fewer soul is off the streets of Portland this winter. What Barb does, is extraordinary. Please, click on this link Our Peaceful Place and click on the Donate Now Button. If you can afford it, sign up for a monthly donation- if we can just get 88 people, giving $25/month, into our sustaining circle, we can keep Barb out there- with plenty of socks and emergency cash for needs like this one.

New Newsletter

The Winter Newsletter for Our Peaceful Place can be found on our main website. Please don't hesitate to donate- or better yet become one of our sustaining circle!

First draft for Knights of Columbus District Deputies

Ted Seeber writes: I'm preparing a flyer to advertise Our Peaceful Place statewide at the Knights of Columbus mid-year meeting for District Deputies in the State of Oregon. Since I'm only Roundtable Chairman, and my presentation time will be eaten up by my duties as such, at most I'll only be able to mention it at the end of my speech, and the flyer will have to speak for me. It occurred to me that the first draft was good enough that I should put it out on the blog. For the reverse side, please see our main website at: How You Can Help

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I was named Knight of the Year for 2011 for Our Lady of the Valley Council 3591, in Tigard, OR. I do a lot for my council, including our website, running the St. Clare’s/St. John Fisher Roundtable (soon to be a council of our own), editing the newsletter. But I also give back to the secular community. I’m on the Board of Directors of Our Peaceful Place.

In April of 1998, our founder, Sr. Maria Francis Waugh, sfcc, had been ministering to the poor on the streets of Portland for nearly twenty years. For many years she had a yearning to offer a place of peace and rest to the homeless in Portland. She desired to furnish a sanctuary where all people could find belonging and family. Her dream was to provide a safe haven for the weary in an environment rich in welcome and acceptance. A comfort zone where people would gather and where healthy relationships would be established and flourish in an atmosphere of tolerance and inclusiveness.

Tragedy struck Our Peaceful Place during the summer of 2003 when Sr. Maria was killed in a car accident. As Maria’s friends and supporters pulled together for comfort; her Board of Directors sought help from them to keep the ministry going. They were able to continue her work and though her loss is still felt, her footprint is on the heart of this mission and her vision is its soul.

Our Peaceful Place continued to operate a drop-in center until October 2006 when the church building it was leasing was no longer available. This did not stop the work of Our Peaceful Place - it has since adapted to working on the streets - where volunteers walk the streets of downtown Portland carrying backpacks filled with items like over-the-counter remedies, socks, hats, etc that are distributed free of cost to the homeless. The organization also provides referrals for access to housing and other social services, assistance in filling out forms - in a nutshell - providing all the help it can with the resources it has.

Our Directoress, Barb Lescher, goes out every morning and evening, rain or shine, pulling behind her a rolling suitcase full of items often needed on the streets of Portland. We do this very cheaply- our overhead is quite low- 99 cents out of every dollar given to Our Peaceful Place, goes to our ministry.

Sr. Maria used to run the whole thing on 88 donors giving just $25/month. As the recession set in, the number of monthly donors we could count on went down, severely. We’re now down to less than 10 donors a month we can count on. We need desperately to rebuild our sustaining circle- and the dream is still there to eventually find an empty storefront and once again open and operate a day shelter.

Every fall, in October, Prince of Peace Lutheran Church in Beaverton and the Indian Church put on a dinner for Our Peaceful Place. Knights of Columbus has been involved heavily in this event- in 2011, 4 councils from District 3 sponsored tables, donating between $250-$500 each. In addition, Tigard Council organized a breakfast at St. Clare’s Parish in Portland giving $1088 to Our Peaceful Place. Sherwood Council organized a sock drive at St. Francis School for Our Peaceful Place. And several Knights are already on our donor list.

I urge you all to go back to your districts and councils and mention the good work that Barb Lescher does. On the back of this flyer is a list of ways your councils can get involved with Our Peaceful Place- including taking walks with Barb. It would be wonderful if a few more Knights could become part of our Sustaining Circle- or if more councils could sponsor tables for the Fall East Indian Dinner fundraiser. But even if you have no money- and can just organize a sock drive, it would be a big help to the work Barb Lescher does on the streets every day.

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Please visit our website to give. The only real difference I'm planning for the final version at this time is that I expect I will soon know when the October dinner is scheduled for, and I'll be editing the document to include that date.

Emergency need

Barb has recently had a single mother referred to her- a 9/11 era veteran Gold Card holder with two young children. She's about to be kicked out for nonpayment of rent. $350 will keep her in her apartment until the first of the year, by which time some VA support will be coming in. Our Peaceful Place can cover this expense- but it will leave us with a shortfall before the end of the year if we do so. If you can, please go to OurPeacefulPlace.org and click on the "Donate now button" to make a one-time donation specifically for this cause.

Needs

Thanksgiving is fast approaching. And with it, the infamous Black Friday, start of the Christmas Shopping Season. If you are reading this and are in the Portland Area, and are planning on shopping at Fred Meyer's on Black Friday, we ask you to add a couple of items for the homeless to your shopping list:

-Socks. Any Socks. Barb likes giving out socks.

-A $24 book of Tri-met 2 hour passes.

Freddy's always has a sale on socks on Black Friday- and Tri-met tickets- so would you please add the homeless to your shopping list? You can always contact one of our volunteers through:

Our Peaceful Place
P.O Box 3093
Clackamas, OR 97015
Ph : 503-295-7744
Email : OPP_Giving@comcast.net

A Walk With Barb

This past Friday, Veteran's Day, was my birthday. Being on the board of directors for Our Peaceful Place, I can sometimes feel a bit disconnected from the work Barb does- almost like my few hours a month, necessary as they are to support Barb's work, are like paying somebody else to do my charity for me. After the dinner in October, my son and his "friend who is a girl" decided they wanted to be a bit more hands on, but they're young, 7 and 8. So I decided for my birthday, I wanted to see what Barb did for myself- we invited along myself, Ted, my wife Shannon, my son Christopher, his friend Julia and her parents. At the last minute my parents also showed up, with three more cousins in tow, for a group of 10 lost little ducklings following along behind Barb.

It was raining heavily- so it was hard to find the type of people who needed our help. In bad weather, homeless people try to find someplace dry to hide, and with the way poverty has become criminalized on our society, they usually don't want to be disturbed. But right away, we found a group of teenagers. I thought they weren't homeless at first. They looked like any other group of teenagers enjoying a night on the town. But Barb led off- asked them if they needed socks. A couple took the socks, so we offered the peanut butter sandwiches my wife had made earlier that were in Christopher's backpack. Those were a hit- so my mother took out the loaf of bread and tuna salad she had mixed up earlier, and started making tuna sandwiches.

After that, we crossed the street and went under Burnside Bridge, where a few people were settling down for the night. We found one very nice couple- he just wanted to sleep, but she was very interested in additional clothing. But when he heard "tuna fish sandwich" he perked right up. We handed out some clothing there, and moved along. Next we took a walk up towards where the day shelter used to be when Sr. Maria was alive. It now appears to be a bar of some sort, but was closed, boarded up, so we took a left and went down towards Voodoo Donuts- where we found a young lady with a small dog and a sign "I can't remember the last time I was warm". We bought her a tea at Voodoo, gave her some sandwiches, and gave her some extra clothing to keep her and her little puppy dog warm.

On the way back, we found more homeless men, and gave out a few more socks and sandwiches- one had some candy and gave it to the kids.

It was an awfully large group to take around, and a large group probably scared some people away, but it was a good experience. What Barb does, is important. Please visit our website and become a monthly donor. If we can just get back to 88 people in our sustaining circle, giving an average of $25 each, we can balance the budget and let Barb continue doing more of what she does.

Become a regular supporter

This article reminded me why Barb Lescher does what she does. Our Peaceful Place has modest needs. 88 people giving $25/month through our website would fund us. In this recession, we're down to less than 1/8th of the number of regular donors we need. The people we help- for a day, for a moment- are the poorest of the poor in America. Each one of them is a human barometer telling us that something is deeply wrong here: with our legal system, our housing programs, our mental health care system. There is something wrong with our priorities, our economy, us. There is something deeply wrong with us when people stand in the cold and rain, in public with their personal dislocation and shame. It is too painful, too humiliating, to dehumanizing. And, truth be told, for most of us, if we lost two or three paychecks, it could be us out there. That is why Barb does what she does. So reach into your heart, into your budget. Visit our website today. Click on the Donate Now Button- and sign up for monthly donations taken out of your credit or debit card. Because, for most of us- if we lost two or three paychecks, we'd be right under that bridge as well.