Friday, November 28, 2014

What do you do for Black Friday?

     I hope that everyone had a spectacular Thanksgiving filled with laughter and fellowship and food.  Lots and lots of food.  My son, the 12 year old, ate himself silly yesterday.  He had an enormous dinner and then went off to play/read/watch Food Network.  Half an hour later he came back to the table and loaded up another massive plate of turkey, stuffing, potatoes, sweet potatoes, green beans, veggies, rolls, cranberry fluff and gravy.  Here's how our interaction went:
  • Me: Son...are you hungry again?
  • Boy: No.  I'm still stuffed.
  • Me: Son...why are you piling food on your plate if you are stuffed?
  • Boy: When I get hungry again I won't have to wait to dish everything up.
He then disappeared again.  In another half hour he was at the table devouring half the food on his plate.  He then groaned, staggering away from the table.  I watched this cycle repeat a couple of times yesterday.  My wife suggested that he is probably growing.  I told her to brace herself because this may not be a growth spurt...this may be the new normal.

What do you do for the day after Thanksgiving...other than avoid the scales?  I know a lot of people who shop.  I worked in retail for a couple of years and so at 2:30 on Black Friday morning I will wake up...look at the time...smile and then go back to bed...thankfulness and gratitude for this job washing over my body.  I know a lot of people who pull out their Christmas decorations and dive into setting up for December.  I know a lot of people who eagerly attack the Thanksgiving leftovers, vehemently claiming that the food is better on the 2nd day than it is on the first.

Here at Joel's Place we take a different approach.  We pull a Groundhog's Day.  We do Thanksgiving all over again for our kids.  Most of them had a chance to eat yesterday.  Some did not.  All of them are like my son who inhale food like oxygen.  We cook up a complete Thanksgiving feast with turkey, potatoes, green beans, pies and stuffing...remember the stuffing.  We will eat together as a family and then have a night full of entertainment and games.  We will have an open mic and talent show.  There will probably be some magic tricks involved.  We will have a stuffing carving contest...3D sculptures made out of stove top that are guaranteed to incite laughter and awe.

The Holidays are about joyful celebration, no matter what home is like for you.  Here at Joel's Place we have the privilege and honor to have Thanksgiving with these amazing young people...even if it is a day late.

Have an incredible holiday season!

Friday, November 21, 2014

The Business of Gratitude

     40 years ago I was born on Thanksgiving.  The doctor called me a turkey...I am still working through that.

I have been trying to write a post on Thanksgiving and Gratitude all day.  It seems appropriate with the national holiday coming up this week and having just completed our Ramp It Up Fundraiser this past Friday.  As I worked on a variety of approaches and angles for this post I came upon a profound realization: I work in the business of Gratitude.  We are usually grateful when we receive a gift that fills a need that we could not meet on our own.  Our culture frowns upon having needs, especially needs that you cannot meet with hard work and determination.  Fundraising is viewed as a necessary evil, grant writing just a little more dignified.  I had someone come up to me after our dinner and tell me what a great job that I do in begging for money.  I had mixed feelings over that statement.  On the one hand he said I did a great job.  On the other hand, the implication of begging is that there should be a better way for us to pay our bills.  I chose to take the compliment and move on.

Here's the thing.  When we are speaking about high-risk youth...from the entire community...who stand at the crossroads of their lives...who come from traumatic childhoods and are looking at adult lives that do not hold much promise...when we are talking about hundreds of young people who just need a little help to turn the direction of their lives around, that need is bigger than me.  It is bigger than me and my staff.  It is a community issue.  And it is a community issue that cannot be dealt with in the same way as other issues, because the young people at the very core have no voice.  So we have created a place where the voices of the marginalized can grow so that they can speak into the community dialogue and take ownership of their own narratives. 

So Joel's Place exists due to the generosity of this community.  This building is paid for, heated and populated due to the members of Interior Alaska declaring that our youth are important through their giving.  You give time, money, food, paper towels, lessons, video games and concerts.  You allow me to bring in the best people who call out the best attributes of these young men and women.  You pray for us. You encourage us.  You volunteer to clean up after us.  Because the need is just that valuable.

And so I find that a central piece of my job is to say "Thank You" and show you that we hold your gifts as precious and seek to use them to further this mission as best we can.  No one likes giving to a lost cause; no one wants to fund a sinking ship.  One of the central pieces to this entire blog is to show that your gift is valuable and we seek to honor it by using it for these young people who hold such promise.  Our gratitude should be expressed not only in words, but also in actions as we treasure every $10, $100 or $1,000 gift that is entrusted to us.

Joel's Place is a community endeavor.  Thank you for joining with us in raising up this generation of Alaskans. 

Friday, November 7, 2014

Ramp It Up 2014!

     You know how sometimes your schedule is a little slower than usual because you are waiting on everyone else to get back to you?  And then sometimes your schedule is a little bit more full than usual because everyone decided that they would call you back within the same half hour with urgent requests that had to be accomplished before their project could progress?  November has been the latter scenario for me.  Life has not been bad.  Not chaotic or catastrophic...just a little frantically busier.

     If you have not heard by now, we have our annual fundraising dinner coming up in one week (more on that later.)  We also received the go-aheads from 4 separate grants within the past week, meaning we could start buying things or recording things or building things or paying for things or hiring people...and every single one of those options included different paperwork.  Thanks to these grants, we are going to be able to:
  • add more security cameras
  • renovate the hallway rooms to increase security and functionality
  • add an arctic entry and put up some more outdoor lights
  • serve meals to 30+ kids at the Boys and Girls Club everyday
  • fix our front door
  • get more heating fuel
  • add a Fund Development Director onto our payroll
It is worthwhile work, it just all kind of came at once...and came at the same time as

RAMP IT UP 2014!!!!

     I am so excited for this event.  Start off with a great location.  Thank you Friends Church for your help in this!  Now add an amazing dinner.  Those of you who attended last year know what I am talking about.  Jameson Kapec put together a spread that kicked off the holiday season in style and he's working on it again this year.  Our ride team will be helping serve, bus tables and generally be courteous and honorable young men and women of character.  One of the Board suggested that we let them ride so that every table could have "Skater Waiters."  No.  There is only so much good behavior that I want to ask of these great kids.  Preston Pollard is going to be speaking.  He is a professional skater that grew up in Anchorage and now travels around the world, inspiring young people.  He's going to be great.  Then you get to listen to me talk about how much progress Joel's Place has made in the past year and how we are going to leverage one great night (Ramp It Up) into a year of Free Skating for the kids.  We will start at 6 and be done by 8 for those of you who are concerned about fundraising events that drag on for 5 hours.

     Ramp It Up is a chance for the entire Joel's Place Family, everyone who really loves this place and these kids, to come together and celebrate as we move forward.  I hope to see you there.

If you do not yet have a ticket!  There is still hope!

     Tickets are going quickly, but we actually have a few table sponsors who are not able to fill their tables.  The tickets are prepaid (that means free for you)  and I would love to have as many people as possible during the event so e-mail me and I would love to hook you up with some seats: 
joelsplacealaska@gmail.com  


Next Friday, the 14th, will be a lot of fun.  I hope I can see you there.