Tales of the Taylor: Songs that Changed the World by Bryan Ethan D

Author:Bryan, Ethan D. [D., Bryan, Ethan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Christian Living, Memoir
Publisher: eLectio Publishing
Published: 2012-03-15T00:00:00+00:00

FOOTNOTES:

[1] The information on Prison Fellowship and InnerChange Freedom Initiative was found on their websites: http://www.prisonfellowship.org/why-pf/what-is-prison-fellowship, http://www.ifiprison.org/ifi-vision, accessed September 2010.

[2] http://www.ifiprison.org/ifi-vision, accessed September 2010.

Hungry and Homeless Awareness Week

Cotton is the director of Hillcrest Transitional Housing in . He spends his days making friends and convincing donors to give generously to the work of transitioning people from homelessness to contributing members of society. He’s also a pretty darn good flat-picking, bluegrass, rhythm guitarist too. Cotton and I met at a dinner my church hosted for Hillcrest graduates. He invited me and my family to come and join him in the annual spring Hillcrest Walk for the Homeless. We went for the first time that year and enjoyed the three mile stroll through historic .

***

Hillcrest Transitional Housing is a 90-day transitional housing program that helps a homeless family achieve independence through a high accountability budgeting and life skills educational curriculum while living in a fully furnished, rent-free apartment. Families that enter the program have over a 95 percent chance of breaking the cycle of homelessness upon graduating the program and over an 80 percent chance of remaining autonomous after 5 years.

The Hillcrest Transitional Housing program is the most successful program of its kind in and has been nationally recognized for Best Practices by the National Alliance to End Homelessness. Executive Director Scott Cooper was awarded the 2004 Stuart Whitney Award for Advocacy from the Homeless Services Coalition of Kansas City.

On average, it costs $5,000 to care for a family for the 90 days that they are in the program, which includes rent, utilities, food, toiletries, budget counseling, life-skills classes, health care, as well as other amenities. In the city of alone, there are more than 900 homeless children. Throughout the metro, the average age of a homeless person is 9 years old. In 2010, eastern Jackson County alone will graduate more than 40 families, breaking the cycle of poverty for generations to come.

***

For the next couple of years, my family walked each May with our friends at Hillcrest. One year, Kaylea started asking me some questions about the walk.

“Dad, how does walking help homeless people?”

“Dad, if I ride my bike, does it still help them?”

“Dad, will there be doughnuts again?”

I told her that the walk is to show our support of what Hillcrest is doing, and to make new friends with the residents. I told her that I ask her grandparents and other family members for small donations, and then write a check to Hillcrest to help support those in the program. Kaylea then surprised me by her response.

“Dad, I’d like to raise my own money to help friends find homes.”

I asked her how she planned on doing it.

“Well, I like to draw, so I’ll draw pictures and sell them for a dollar and give all the money I make to Hillcrest. Do you think I can raise $50 selling pictures?”

“Sure,” I said, hoping she wouldn’t detect the doubt behind my response.

Every day after school, Kaylea came home and drew three to five pictures for her “art portfolio.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.