Maria —
So, I like this as it is, but the body text runs 677 words. If you remove all three sections set off with ***triple asterisks*** you get to 585, and I can weep into my coffee if necessary. But feel free to just remove the ***'s and run it as is if you have room!
Pax, Jeff
=+=+=+=
Notes from my Knapsack 1-9-25
Jeff Gill
Jimmy & Rosalynn were a matched pair
___
As the nation says farewell to Jimmy Carter, and we in faith celebrate his reunion with his wife of 77 years, Rosalynn, this story sticks with me.
I never had the pleasure or privilege of speaking to our former president, but his spouse… about twenty years ago, Rosalynn Carter came to Denison University, and I had the chance to help with setting up a reception for her and the program she was coming to promote, so I was early to the campus building where it was happening, ***moving tables and setting up chairs and such in what was then Cleveland Hall (now the Bryant Art Center).***
She and her two Secret Service men also showed up early, and the faculty in charge of the event talked to her, and I faded back into the rear of the room, which opened onto a balcony. The people coming to the reception started flowing up the interior stairs, and suddenly the profs pivoted to something else, and Mrs. Carter retreated back towards where I was waiting. To be perfectly honest, I had made a point of putting a Habitat lapel pin on the jacket I was wearing. It worked.
She turned, saw my pin, walked right over and introduced herself (ha!); I explained my involvement with Habitat and more with a transitional housing program. Her immediate question was about how we dealt with mental health issues. She knew her stuff, and I told her what our problems were in navigating that interface, with Medicaid billing a big complication.
The crowd grew, but between the refreshments and the punch, they all talked to each other while lining up for nosh, and Mrs. Carter and I stepped back onto the balcony. One Secret Service agent had stayed near the interior stairs and entrance; the one with her handed us both cups of punch he'd grabbed, smiled at us and said "I'll stand here in the doorway so you two can talk."
We chatted about Habitat and how builds went and what "Jimmy" liked to do (framing), whom she referred to often, but not cloyingly so. Clearly a partnership, and a loving relationship, which everyone knows, but it was sweet to hear by inference. She said they both worried that when they showed up they were more distraction than help, but they tried to make up for it with working the best they could "and not just for the cameras!" ***She was smiling when she said that, but you could hear a tinge of irritation -- and you'd never get her to say who she might have been talking about.***
Rosalynn Carter had opinions about how Medicaid and mental health was working, and certainly in 2005 was talking in terms of a federal single payer health care program as the only logical, practical solution she could see; she was curious about how we handled incoming persons who didn't have Medicaid and were reluctant to sign up for it. ***I'll admit the challenge as the crowd grew and the hubbub increased around us was that she was very soft voiced, and approximately half my height (or so it seemed), so I increasingly hunched over to bring my ears a little closer.***
To my everlasting frustration, we had just started talking about how she wished churches had taken more of an interest in mental health treatment & recovery, when the event leader came up to our doorway, and said to the Secret Service agent "We need Mrs. Carter to help us get started." She asked if I was coming to the big evening event, and I said yes, and she said "Maybe we'll get to talk more then; you take care."
I did see her in Swasey Chapel that night. She waved at me across the crowd at one point as people were settling in; afterwards, there was an event with students planned, and I went home because I had an early morning meeting the next day, so we did not talk again. But I remember that wave, and her smile. Godspeed, ma'am. Tell Jimmy I said hi.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; I suspect there are other Jimmy Carter stories out there! Feel free to share them with him at knapsack77@gmail.com or follow @Knapsack77 on Threads or Blue Sky.
Monday, December 30, 2024
Faith Works 1-3-25
Faith Works 1-3-25
Jeff Gill
Warming places in cold times
___
Since January of 2019, an assortment of volunteers, churches, and organizations in Licking County have worked together to ensure we have some kind of "emergency warming center" for nights and sometimes through days when the winter temperatures are dangerously cold.
We've been in a half-dozen church locations; this winter we are at Holy Trinity Lutheran Church on W. Main St., midway between the Courthouse and Licking Memorial Hospital.
Since that first ad-hoc winter, we've organized as the "Licking County Emergency Warming Center Task Force," with support from the Licking County Foundation for our nuts and bolts structure, and amazing help coming from both Licking Memorial Health Systems and the Licking County Transit folks. Notification goes out when we have an activation through the Licking County Health Department, and Pathways 211 has our information for those who call the crisis hotline along with the social media notices, and of course word of mouth.
When do we activate? This winter, like the last couple, the threshold is set at 10 degrees or lower overnight. We watch other weather conditions, and the leadership group has activated our service for guests under other circumstances, but that's the basic measure.
We've been asked "why not 32 degrees?" Sure, that would be better, but the truth is we started at 0 degrees, bumped it up higher, and found we were open more nights than we could reliably get volunteer staffing to cover. So right now, 10 degrees it is, with a stretch of cold weather likely in the near future.
In early December, we opened for two nights with an Alberta Clipper forecast. Volunteers came in from Hanover and Heath, Utica and Granville, and of course Newark; our guests included some who had been unsheltered for extended periods, but we continue to see increasing numbers of seniors and young families who are "caught outside" living in cars and such while working across a gap from one rental to another. They have a plan for next month or so, but are stuck without housing until that comes open, sleeping in cars or elsewhere until that lodging is available . . . and then the cold comes.
Your neighbors need help, and we're trying to extend that help. If you would like to be a volunteer with the Warming Center effort, the United Way of Licking County is helping us with volunteer coordination. You can go to their website, on the "Get Involved" tab: https://www.unitedwaylc.org/get-involved/
Scroll down to the "Licking County Emergency Warming Center" section, and you can click a "Sign Up" button to enter your contact information for the volunteer coordinators.
You can choose what works as to shifts: there's Intake from 4:30-8:30 pm which needs a couple of helpers; food preparation from 4:30-8:30 pm as well, which is mostly done for us, but we need help serving and cleaning up. There's the late shift to be present and offering assistance from 8:30 pm-12:30 am, and the overnight shift from 12:30-5:30 am, each needing four people to help our guests.
Then at 5:30 to 8:30 am our closer/cleanup crew arrives to help get breakfast served and direct guests onto transport when appropriate; a number of those staying with us each night have jobs to get to in the morning. When we wrap up from an activation, there's a stack of gear to launder and prepare for the next time we open up.
That totals up to fifteen or sixteen volunteers needed each night; if there's a three night activation it comes to about fifty total for us to operate to everyone's benefit. And signing up doesn't obligate you, it simply means you'll be contacted when conditions have us planning for a possible activation.
Please consider registering as a volunteer; there's a whole bunch of winter ahead as we begin 2025!
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he's been a volunteer with the warming center effort and would love to see you come join us! Tell him what you like to volunteer with at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack77 on Threads or Blue Sky.
Jeff Gill
Warming places in cold times
___
Since January of 2019, an assortment of volunteers, churches, and organizations in Licking County have worked together to ensure we have some kind of "emergency warming center" for nights and sometimes through days when the winter temperatures are dangerously cold.
We've been in a half-dozen church locations; this winter we are at Holy Trinity Lutheran Church on W. Main St., midway between the Courthouse and Licking Memorial Hospital.
Since that first ad-hoc winter, we've organized as the "Licking County Emergency Warming Center Task Force," with support from the Licking County Foundation for our nuts and bolts structure, and amazing help coming from both Licking Memorial Health Systems and the Licking County Transit folks. Notification goes out when we have an activation through the Licking County Health Department, and Pathways 211 has our information for those who call the crisis hotline along with the social media notices, and of course word of mouth.
When do we activate? This winter, like the last couple, the threshold is set at 10 degrees or lower overnight. We watch other weather conditions, and the leadership group has activated our service for guests under other circumstances, but that's the basic measure.
We've been asked "why not 32 degrees?" Sure, that would be better, but the truth is we started at 0 degrees, bumped it up higher, and found we were open more nights than we could reliably get volunteer staffing to cover. So right now, 10 degrees it is, with a stretch of cold weather likely in the near future.
In early December, we opened for two nights with an Alberta Clipper forecast. Volunteers came in from Hanover and Heath, Utica and Granville, and of course Newark; our guests included some who had been unsheltered for extended periods, but we continue to see increasing numbers of seniors and young families who are "caught outside" living in cars and such while working across a gap from one rental to another. They have a plan for next month or so, but are stuck without housing until that comes open, sleeping in cars or elsewhere until that lodging is available . . . and then the cold comes.
Your neighbors need help, and we're trying to extend that help. If you would like to be a volunteer with the Warming Center effort, the United Way of Licking County is helping us with volunteer coordination. You can go to their website, on the "Get Involved" tab: https://www.unitedwaylc.org/get-involved/
Scroll down to the "Licking County Emergency Warming Center" section, and you can click a "Sign Up" button to enter your contact information for the volunteer coordinators.
You can choose what works as to shifts: there's Intake from 4:30-8:30 pm which needs a couple of helpers; food preparation from 4:30-8:30 pm as well, which is mostly done for us, but we need help serving and cleaning up. There's the late shift to be present and offering assistance from 8:30 pm-12:30 am, and the overnight shift from 12:30-5:30 am, each needing four people to help our guests.
Then at 5:30 to 8:30 am our closer/cleanup crew arrives to help get breakfast served and direct guests onto transport when appropriate; a number of those staying with us each night have jobs to get to in the morning. When we wrap up from an activation, there's a stack of gear to launder and prepare for the next time we open up.
That totals up to fifteen or sixteen volunteers needed each night; if there's a three night activation it comes to about fifty total for us to operate to everyone's benefit. And signing up doesn't obligate you, it simply means you'll be contacted when conditions have us planning for a possible activation.
Please consider registering as a volunteer; there's a whole bunch of winter ahead as we begin 2025!
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he's been a volunteer with the warming center effort and would love to see you come join us! Tell him what you like to volunteer with at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack77 on Threads or Blue Sky.
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