January Recap & Further Program Plans
Hello and happy new year– just a little late! Here at Mother Angela’s we’ve got a lot going on behind the scenes, and a lot to prepare for in the coming months. January was spent resetting after the holidays and planning for continued program launches, expansion of current programming, fundraising/grant efforts and online education & advocacy (we’re coming back with the online edu this month to talk about addiction as part of the American health crisis).
The shelter & unhoused support program is developing every day in San Francisco, and we’ve got some more specific goals as far as expansion to share with you:
Remote Volunteers for Meal & Pamphlet Pass-Outs
The idea here is to maximize reach and impact for the community while simultaneously saving program funds for supplies. What we’ll do– hopefully each month once we gain regular volunteers– is recruit people to participate on their own in street pass-outs of meals & our Resource Pamphlets. We’ll send lists of supplies, instructions for the meal prep, a guided recipe, and print-at-home pamphlets to volunteers (as well as likely posting them on social media), and everyone will get to support the unhoused folks that live the closest to them. (We’ll also brief everyone on best, safest and most respectful practices when conducting street pass-outs.) Aside from the potential for exponential growth, the initiative also gives us an opportunity to advocate for mutual aid on a larger scale and demonstrate just how far Sharing Whatcha Got can go in our communities.
The Addition of Harm Reduction (HR) Initiatives for People Who Use Drugs (PWUDs)
One of the largest chronic health issues affecting unhoused folks in our locations is addiction, and local governments have struggled for years with how to address the substance use disorders in our communities. The only strategy for this issue that centers evidence-based practices as well as patient dignity, and has a proven track record of mitigating overdose, disease and deaths and even reducing relapse is called “Harm Reduction.” Essentially, Harm Reduction focuses on the autonomy, rights and humanity of those who use drugs. Rather than condemning or criminalizing drug use, this compassionate approach prioritizes education, safety and trust-building amongst P.W.U.D.s and H.R. practitioners.
Resources for housing, help getting sober and related services are also usually included in Harm Reduction programs, allowing clients the autonomy to determine when they’re ready to seek treatment, and an easy, welcoming, affordable path to do so. At Mother Angela’s we believe in Harm Reduction strategies and understand that, even medically, shame has absolutely no place in health or healing. (Patients of substance use disorders are actually far more likely to keep using or relapse if they’re made to feel shame surrounding their addiction– it’s what happens when the brain’s reward and decision-making systems are compromised.)
We are currently participating in programming via the National Harm Reduction Coalition in order to learn best practices before integrating HR practices into the Shelter & Unhoused Support Program. If you’d like to learn more about Harm Reduction in general, visit https://harmreduction.org/movement/ .
As far as the Resource Pamphlets, we’re still looking to finish and print Birmingham’s pamphlets first, followed by San Francisco and New Orleans. Since deciding that the Resource Pamphlets should also be printable at home, we’ve had to change directions as far as how we plan to format them. Though it causes a bit of time set-back, it will be well worth it when anyone in our cities is able to access and help distribute them to individuals, shelters, community programs, etc.
Once the Birmingham Pamphlets are finished and printed, we can begin planning in earnest for the first Community Event. We have tons of ideas, venues and supplies lined up, but we’re adamant that the Resource Pamphlets be central to this event, so we won’t set a date until the first print. If you live in or know people in Birmingham and are interested in volunteering or helping us lock down the perfect venue & local sponsors– please don’t hesitate to reach out! We’d love to connect with you to help make the launch of this program epic. We’re in the market for musical entertainment as well. At this stage, it would be best if the artist or band in question were considered a sponsor of the event, as we likely won’t have the capital to hire anyone good yet.
Speaking of capital, our next campaign will be a peer-to-peer fundraiser, in which volunteers will each be responsible for soliciting donations on their own to meet a certain goal. Not only is it a wonderful way to spread the word about our work by facilitating discourse between fundraisers and potential donors, but the structure of a peer-to-peer campaign also allows for much higher yields than if Mother Angela’s personnel were to solicit donations on our own. More details to come regarding this campaign and how you can sign up to be a part of it!
Aside from fundraising, we’re also applying to several grants every week to try and raise the money necessary for our plans. We’ve sent in applications for state, local and national government grants as well as those from private foundations and public charities. Any way we can get these programs off the ground works for us! As always, feel free to send any grant opportunities our way that might be fitting if you’re involved in the philanthropic, educational or public services realms in any of our locations.
The final update we have to share with you today is that we’re looking for new board members and need your help finding them! We’d like to add one board member in Birmingham and one in New Orleans for now– taking our official board size from 3 to 5. It’s important to us that the communities we’re serving are represented on the board, so we’re ideally looking for lifetime locals and/or people heavily involved in the community already. Teachers, social workers, healthcare professionals and community servants of any other sort would all make ideal candidates, as these careers provide uniquely close lenses to the overlapping health and poverty crises. Have a potential candidate in mind, or are one yourself?! Let us know!!
In sum, we’re absolutely itching to get the rest of our programs off the ground, continue growing those in motion and spreading the word about our work and the mutual aid movement. We’re so thankful that you’re along for the ride, in whatever capacity that may be. As we’ve discovered in the year and a half since our incorporation, the nonprofit world is no walk in the park. We’ll take all the cheerleaders we can get!
