Open Hands has four Core Values and Beliefs. They are:
Everyone is welcome
Love changes people
Everyone has gifts to share
All things are possible
We welcome EVERYONE to our come to any of our programs. You may say, "Yes, I know that, what is your point?" The point is that recently at our Monday meal a few of our guests have felt the need to tell me we should NOT allow certain people to come here. What I tell them is "Everyone is Welcome". If I started telling some of our guests they could not come here for some of the reasons this guest was telling me, I would not be standing by our stated values and beliefs. Therefore, I will not be discriminating who can and who cannot come here, just sayin'... In March, I had the opportunity to speak at Shepherd of the Hills in Shoreview. I shared with them all about the programs of Open Hands as well as ways that people can get involved here. At the end of my talk, there was a question and answer session. I was very excited when Pastor Renee said, "I'm the Pastor so I get to ask the first question. If we want to get involved now, what would it take?" In the coming weeks, Pastor Renee and I will be talking more about how a partnership between us would work. But in the meantime, her Church did have some immediate engagement with us for their Day of Service. Six people came here to help us get ready for our Monday meal. There was another group who did a project back at their church where they bagged laundry soap that we can distribute to our guests as well as baked cookies to be used for dessert at our Monday meal. Two brochures for Open Hands are presently in the works. One is our Program Brochure and the other is our Meals Program Fundraising Brochure. The Program Brochure highlights our programs (hmm, that might have made you slap your forehead and say, "Duh!") and shares how the vision of Bethlehem Lutheran became a community reality. The second brochure, our Meals Program Fundraiser Brochure, tells about the people in need who live in the community we serve, our organization needs and more. It will be exciting to see them once they are FINALLY printed. This is a topic that has me slapping my forehead in disbelief at the place where they are being printed and I will leave it at that for now. I am also working on getting my own business cards printed, thankfully NOT at the same place the brochures are being done. I cannot tell you how many meetings or functions I go to and someone says, "Just give me your card" to which I reply, "I would if I had one." I suppose after a year and a quarter being the Director it might behoove me to have one, just sayin'.... Another thing I am working on is adding more information to our website. We feel it would be beneficial to show people where the money goes which they donate to us. We will probably end up having some 'pull down' tabs for this as the menu bar would get too long, and exceed the limits of the page, just sayin'... Of course I have to add something fun to my 'Just Sayin' piece. My friends, Ric and Diana Reichel, recently spent time vacationing in Florida and took in some of the Minnesota Twins Spring training camp. One day Ric sent me a text message with a list asking me if I would like to 'pick one out'. It was a list of all these Twins names and numbers. It perplexed me so I asked him what it was. He said it was a list of all the baseballs they had gotten autographed. I then scanned the list for one of my all time favorites, Bert Blyleven and sure enough there he was. I informed Ric I would like one of good old #28. I am happy to say this past Monday said baseball was delivered to me by Diana. Oh, you may know Diana if you are here on Monday's as she is a fairly regular volunteer. Anyway, I now have my signed baseball proudly displayed on my desk at home.
If you are like me, you are so wanting the weather to warm up so you can be outside (not just at Open Hands for our meals) take bike rides, go for walks or just soak up some sun. It is interesting how this spring has gone. There are days when it is in the 70's and then the next day it can be in the 30's. Consequently I have gone from long pants, to shorts and back to long pants. Anyone who knows me knows I would much rather wear shorts than long pants any day. So as I close all I have to say is COME ON WARM WEATHER, WE MISS YOU, just sayin'...