The Women’s Group of Faith Community in Covina hosted a wonderful Kids Party on Saturday for all the children, and their families, at URM!
The gym was transformed into a fun zone, with games, music, free-throw contests, photo booths, hoola hooping, face painting and more! The kids had a blast, and didn’t want it to end. The ladies of Faith Community generously supplied everyone with pizzas for lunch, which was a great ending to a great morning of fun.
Thanks to Faith Community and everyone who made this escape from life on Skid Row possible for our kids!
Over the past year, it has been a goal of Union Rescue Mission to update our Donor Wall, an area on the 1st floor honoring many of our generous donors. Thankfully, we were put in touch with a wonderful artist from Illinois, Marg Rehnberg, who designed a beautiful, colorful and inspiring image that was put onto 4″x4″ squares to create a 20′x7′ image!
This weekend, we held a “Donor Appreciate Weekend” to celebrate not only the beautiful artwork displayed for all our guests and visitors to enjoy, but the generous donors who help make our work here possible.
Visitors arrived around 10am on Saturday, at which time they were able to help place the tiles on the wall (above is what the wall looked like at the beginning!), take tours, and watch a film about Union Rescue Mission.
Volunteers serving lunch even came out to help with the wall – everyone was excited to help and amazed at how it transformed the area. The mural is located in a main hall on our ground floor, where people are constantly walking by.
We also held a Praise and Dedication ceremony on Sunday, which included testimonies, history highlights, musical performances, and an “unveiling” of the wall.
Big thanks to EVERYONE who made this honorary wall and this weekends event a success – we are very grateful. And of course, thank you to all of our supporters who help change the lives of people here on Skid Row. It is only by partnering together that we can end homelessness as we know it in LA!
Every two years, the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority (LAHSA) conducts the Greater Los Angeles Homeless Count, as part of its mission “to support, create and sustain solutions to homelessness in the City & County of Los Angeles by providing leadership, advocacy, planning and management of program funding.”
LAHSA is the lead agency in the Los Angeles Continuum of Care and coordinates and manages approximately $74 million annually in federal, state, county and city funds for programs providing shelter, housing and services to homeless persons in the City & County of Los Angeles. They provide funding, program design, outcomes assessment and technical assistance to nearly 265 homeless services programs at nearly 100 non-profit partner agencies operating in the City & County of Los Angeles.
The count is a vital part of LAHSA’s services, which in turn benefit the guests of Union Rescue Mission. If you would like to help with the Count, please go to http://theycountwillyou.org . You can sign up with the URM Team by following these easy steps:
Click “Volunteer Now” at the top of the page. This will take you to the Volunteer page.
In the center of the page there will be a box that says “Sign Up to Volunteer” – input your email address. That will take you to the Registration page.
On the right hand side of the page input your information – in the box marked Team Name input “I will – URM”.
I have to admit I have had a bit of a blog writer’s block for the last few weeks as I have wrestled with some bad news. Right at Thanksgiving, during the overnight event where we deep fry 200 turkeys for our Union Rescue Mission Thanksgiving Feast, my kidneys failed, and within 12 hours I gained 20 lbs of fluid, mostly in my feet, and as I later learned, in my lungs. I made it through that big 24 hour event and helped serve 4500 precious people Thanksgiving Dinner. I struggled through the holidays, kept going, but sensed that I was losing my 40 year battle with Type 1 diabetes and the 12 year miraculous effort to keep my kidneys functioning adequately enough to get by. I feared the worst, contemplating what life would be like on a disability income and even more scary, apart from URM.
I went through some tests, and prayed a lot, quietly. My fantastic Dr. Kumar tripled my meds and helped me shed 25 lbs. of fluid quickly. After some struggles adjusting to the medications, the quick drops in my blood pressure that had me wondering whether I could even get up and speak at public events or have the strength to walk two blocks to the drug store and back, the news from the tests was a bit encouraging as learned I still have 16% kidney function. 15% and below is considered kidney failure.
The most encouraging words to me came from Dr. Kumar, in front of my wife Bonnie. He not only told me that I can keep working at URM for now, but told me that even when I go on dialysis, probably by July or August of this year, I can keep working! I can do dialysis at home 10 hours each night during my sleep. In fact, he said, “You need to keep working until you drop! Going on disability will not keep you alive! It will kill you.”
I am working with the Union Rescue Mission Board of Directors and leadership team to select a right hand person to carry on just in case things go awry, but God is giving me the strength and the help to carry on in this wonderful job He has placed me in, serving my good friends who are experiencing homelessness on the streets of Los Angeles. When I shared my tough news in Chapel at URM, I was touched by the number of guys who sincerely came up to me offering to donate a kidney to save my life. The guys here check on me every day.
I have signed up to receive not only a new kidney but also a new pancreas! I am officially on a waiting list. Doctors prefer to do both a kidney and pancreas as getting only a kidney will not be as life lengthening as receiving both. I am a bit apprehensive, fearful, and have had to work up the nerve to move ahead, but since the alternative is not so good, I am moving ahead. Thanks for keeping me, my family, URM, and our precious guests in your prayers.
As you may know, this winter, thousands of people in LA County will be forced to find shelter in garages, warehouses, cars, parks and even city streets. Cold temperatures and rain make sleeping outside even more dangerous, causing such health problems as the flu, bronchitis, pneumonia, hypothermia, and sometimes, even death. That’s why our subsidiary, EIMAGO, Inc, partners with the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority to open four Winter Shelters each year in Downtown LA, Culver City, West LA, and Glendale.
To learn more about how these Winter Shelters work, why they matter, and how you can get involved, please check out our latest Winter Shelter section on our website,www.urm.org/wintershelter. Thank you so much for caring about all the people experiencing homelessness in LA, especially during these winter months. Together, let’s end homelessness as we know it in Los Angeles!
Four years ago, 84-year-old Betty sold everything and left Indonesia to find her lost daughter, Thea, in Los Angeles. She found Thea living in a homeless shelter, suffering from paranoia. Thea refused to return to Indonesia … so Betty did what only a loving mother would do — she chose to share homelessness with her daughter so she could help her.
“When I saw her life, I had no heart to go. But I had nothing,” Betty recalls. Andy Bales, CEO of Union Rescue Mission, first met Betty at one of the four winter shelters Union Rescue Mission operates from December 1 to March 15 in Glendale, Culver City, West Los Angeles, and Downtown. These shelters ensure that hundreds of men and women experiencing homelessness have a warm meal, a bed, and safety from the winter cold each night. Thanks to you, a loving mother escapes winter streets and finds a way home.
“It was very hard. Every morning we had to leave the shelter and go out with nothing into the rain and cold,” Betty recalls. When Andy met Betty at the shelter, she was penniless, embarrassed, and seriously ill with bronchitis. Andy quickly moved Betty and Thea to Union Rescue Mission, where they both received the long-term help they needed. “I got health care, new teeth, I got everything,” Betty says. “So I am very grateful to Andy Bales and Union Rescue Mission.”
Today Betty, now 88, and Thea share an apartment in Downey, where Betty cares for Thea as she receives treatment for her own health issues. “I am very poor,” Betty says, “but I have food, shelter, and my daughter. I have to say thank you to the Lord. Yes, God is good.”
Notes from Andy
People Like You and Me
When I first met Betty at one of our four winter shelters, it was a cold, wet evening in February 2008. I was stunned. What was a sweet, little 84-year-old mother from Indonesia doing in a winter shelter?
She told me how she had come to Los Angeles to rescue her daughter from homelessness, and had to experience homelessness herself. I thought of my own precious mother and my heart broke over Betty’s extraordinary love for her daughter.
Many people think winter shelters are filled with folks who are mentally ill, addicts, and chronically homeless. The reality, however, is that they are people like the young woman who suddenly lost her home and needed a bed. Now she’s serving in the National Guard. Or the 18-yearold boy whose family sent him away because they couldn’t afford him. Or the couple where the wife had cancer and nowhere else to go. Or people like Betty — all people like you and me.
These precious souls come to our shelters seeking a bed and shelter from the cold. Many times, they then take advantage of our longer-term services so they can get back on their feet. It’s people like these, made in the image of God, that compel us to care enough to open our winter shelters each year.
FREEBIRDS, a burrito restaurant that originated in Santa Barbara back in 1987, held their Grand Opening near USC today. The popular chain has decided to open up 16 new locations in California this year.
Keeping in line with their mission, “Feed Your Belly, Feed Your Soul”, they benefit charities at their Grand Opening Events. Yesterday, proceeds went to the Art of Elysium, and today donations were given to us to help people experiencing homelessness. The first 250 guest to arrive were able to receive a free burrito in honor of their $5 donation.
We are so thankful for the generosity of FREEBIRDS, and to everyone who came out to the event to day to support our work here at Union Rescue Mission!
