What are you doing in your neighborhood?

[Tim Mathis]

I'd love to hear some examples of what you mustard-seeders are doing out there, particularly in relation to localized ministry--urban, suburban, rural, whatever. I'm in Seattle, and excited about some of what's happening here at COTA and elsewhere, but I want to hear what other innovators are doing.

I posted on my blog a while back on a few of the organizations that I'm connected with in the Seattle area that I'm excited about and inspired by. It's great to see innovative things happening in the suburbs at St. Margaret's Episcopal Church, and in an interfaith, social-justice non-profit context at Multifaith Works.

[Matthew]

We have just begun a community garden where we work with neighborhood children every Wednesday.

Tomorrow, I intend to walk to the corner where gunshots were fired yesterday and make colorful flowers with sidewalk chalk.

[David Hodges]

Who we are:
The Coral House Community is a gathering of ordinary people who long to live extraordinary lives. We are a young community. Some of us are single, some of us are married, and some of us have children. We live in two houses that we are renovating on one piece of property, and we have recently acquired an apartment next to our community garden a few blocks away. We believe that we can accomplish together what none of us could do alone.

What we do:
Along with a larger group of people, we work with the homeless in our neighborhood to provide food, clothing, shelter, and advocacy. We distribute free food in Bryant Park in Lake Worth on a weekly basis. We meet as many clothing needs as we can in our community, providing work boots, warm jackets for the cold, children’s clothes, and job interview attire. We also distribute blankets to the homeless on cold nights and facilitate rides to area cold weather shelters. We assist in finding and procuring affordable housing, helping with down payments when we can. We also provide emergency utility bill payment services.

Where we want to go:
As we look to the future, we would love to be able to own a building that we could use to provide transitional housing. Many of our homeless friends have an income, but cannot afford the down payment to get into a home. Our vision is to provide a place to stay for three to six months. During this time residents would receive financial counseling, substance abuse and recovery counseling, job training, and job placement assistance. We believe in the power of partnerships and are developing relationships with other local service providers to assist us in providing these services. We also believe in the power of community and that working together to address the root causes of homelessness is far more effective then the “band-aids” of free handouts.

Let's keep changing the world one little act of kindness at a time!