Unifying the community to heal homelessness and to restore relationships.
To: All Interested Parties
From: The Living Ministries Power Group
Date: Sunday November 14, 2010
Place: Intermission Café in Longview, Washington
Attendance: Summer Clemenson, Leslie Huhtala, Sonny Huhtala, and Karen Gidderon
The meeting was called to order at 6:15pm by President Sonny Huhtala. Each member contributed to our joint prayer for our new venture to help heal homelessness. An evaluation of the new Living Ministries website was conducted by all members. The site is off to a great start and more content was gleaned by each member. Summer Clemenson will continue to add more content to the new site. It was deemed that the site is wonderful and the members look forward to watching it grow.
Living Ministries will apply for a master business license and open an account at Fibre Federal Credit Union. The members voted in a slate of officers. Sonny Huhtala-President. Leslie Huhtala-Vice President. Summer Clemenson-Treasurer. Karen Gidderon-Secretary
The Cowlitz PUD Auditorium has been reserved for the first stakeholders meeting on Wednesday, December 01, 2010 at 7 PM. The meeting will last one hour. The mission of the meeting is to allow the stakeholders to bring their ideas to the table and assist in healing homelessness in Cowlitz County. Each stakeholder brings a special element to the meeting. A list of stakeholders is currently being compiled. Each person will be contacted via e-mail, regular mail, a personal visit, or a pleasant phone call to participate in this exciting evening. We anticipate 100 stakeholders to attend. We will ask the staff at The Red Rooster Bakery to help with some pastries for the event. Dan and Cindy at ZoJo’s will be asked to contribute their fantastic coffee. The staff at Caka-a-liciouss will be asked to contribute some of their cupcakes.
The stakeholders will enter the room and be asked to sit down. A special package will be placed in their chairs. Then they will be asked to enjoy a piece of candy. There will be a little note at the end that reads “What’s been done in the past.” The next little candy note will read “I have nothing to offer.” The next little candy note will read “Political agenda.” The next little candy note will read “Hopelessness.” The last candy note will read “Religion or belief system.”
This is the Diffusing the Argument section. We will ask all stakeholders to throw all of these candy notes away! This is the ego box and we want to get rid of it right away. Then each stakeholder will be assigned a number. All like numbers will create a breakout group. Then the fun begins! We will ask our stakeholders a question. “What is your perception of homelessness?”
After a few minutes we will take everyone’s response and have it recorded via laptop. This will take approximately 15 minutes. Then we will render a few perceptions. Now that we are really cooking we will ask another question. “What can you do individually to heal the sickness of homelessness?” These are our golden nuggets that we will take back with us for further study.
The stakeholder’s meeting will then take us to the most valuable part of the evening, the chance for unity. Everyone putting their ideas together to form an action plan to move forward from here is the goal.
December 19-21 2010 will find our members manning a rest stop. We will ask businesses for help with supplies to run a coffee stand for those tired holiday travelers. We need sugar, napkins, tea, coffee, and hot cocoa. The donations will be evenly divided by Attic Ministries Outreach and Living Ministries.
We are currently working a nice pamphlet for Living Ministries that exclaims what we truly want to do for our community. We will provide shelter and resources, networking through communication with other non-profit entities, advocacy, social services, training, counseling, hope, food, vouchers, first aid, personal stuffs, car, cleaning supplies, intake specialists, mentors, office supplies.
We currently have the following needs: A building, furniture and bedding supplies, two 15 passenger vans, volunteers, contractors, clothing, appliances, and a security team.
The meeting ended at 8:22PM.
Next Meeting will be November 21, 2010 at 6pm at The Intermission Coffee House.
Respectfully Submitted,
Karen Gidderon
Living Ministries
Secretary
