Month: September 2014
The Mission – September 2014
Culinary school taught me how to create good food,” says Darren, the 49-year-old lead cook at Union Rescue Mission. “But the one thing they couldn’t teach me was how to make soul food. I don’t mean African-American cuisine — I mean food cooked with love. My mom taught me how to do that.”
Over the past year, Darren has helped serve more than 1,300 meals a day to hungry guests on Skid Row, and every meal is served with passion, love, and compassion.
“I love to serve,” he says. “It comes from my upbringing. Our house was always the go-to house for the less-fortunate kids in our neighborhood. Mom taught me that food is a ministry.”
Last year, when Darren found himself out of a job, he found an opening at Union Rescue Mission that combined his two greatest passions — serving food and ministry to hurting people.
“When I first saw what’s happening on Skid Row, I was stoked,” he recalls. “I remember thinking, you mean to tell me I can get paid to cook AND serve these people? You’ve got to be kidding! I love every minute of this.”
Each morning when Darren arrives in the kitchen, he starts with a five-minute cry for the people he’ll serve that day, followed by the theme song from Rocky for inspiration and prayer with his staff.
“I love people on Skid Row,” he says. “I want to serve them the best meal I possibly can. And that’s soul food. Food made with love. And I tell you, every day I see miracles in this place.”
But Darren says the greatest miracle he’s witnessed was serving almost 4,000 meals at URM’s Thanksgiving celebration last year.
“I think I worked 85 hours the week before Thanksgiving, just to get everything ready. We had no idea where we were going to get all the food,” he recalls. “But just like Jesus when He miraculously fed 4,000 people, we found it. I worked 15 hours straight on Thanksgiving, but it only felt like three.”
Darren says his greatest reward is seeing people blessed by the food he serves. “Nothing’s more important to me than the people we serve who’ve come here to put their lives back together,” he says. “Working here is one of the highlights of my life, to get paid to work on Skid Row and serve soul food to these special people — and serve it with everything I got.”
Union Rescue Mission will serve more than 170,000 meals this holiday season and more than 4,000 guests at our Thanksgiving Celebration alone! It’s never too soon to start getting ready.
Great meals don’t just happen and they require far more than fancy techniques and perfect ingredients. The best meals are created with a heaping measure of love. And that’s Union Rescue Mission’s recipe for success at our annual Thanksgiving Celebration. Above is a brief peek at some of the other essential ingredients that go into this special day.
This Thanksgiving season, the Mission will serve more than 170,000 meals! In the past, thanks to hundreds of volunteers and generous donations from local markets, each meal cost only $2.08. But due to California’s ongoing drought, food donations have dropped and prices have increased, forcing the cost of each meal to rise to $2.41. In order to continue serving so many meals to hungry people on Skid Row this Thanksgiving season, we need your help now!
So please send the most generous gift you can today. Your gift of any size will be a huge help. Thank you!
Notes From Andy
I love Thanksgiving. It’s always been my favorite holiday of the year, especially at Union Rescue Mission. But this year, I’m looking forward to our Thanksgiving celebration with concern, as well as hopeful anticipation.
Thanks to California’s severe drought, food donations to URM have plummeted and food prices are skyrocketing. I’m sure you’ve noticed our cost to serve a meal here has risen from $2.08 to $2.41 per meal — meaning our budget for food this year will rise by more than $264,000!
And it’s likely to increase even more in the months ahead. I’m sure you’re experiencing the pinch of higher food costs, as well. So this could be a tough Thanksgiving season for all
of us. But I want to assure you that our commitment to serve “soul food” to all our guests, and our mission to transform lives, will never waver — not as long as generous, caring people like you stand with us and rise to meet this challenge.
As Chef Darren says, “. . . food is a ministry.” And “soul food” is food served with love. Well, YOUR love is what makes this “soul food” possible. So thank you for everything you do on behalf of hurting people on Skid Row.
Blessings,
Keith
Dream with URM this Upcoming Year!
We’ve just completed fiscal year 2013/2014 at Union Rescue Mission and when I say “we”, I mean you and all of our partners, providing the resources, lifting us up in prayer, joining our volunteer team, and spreading the word of the excellent life changing work happening here on the streets of Skid Row as well as out at our Hope Gardens Family Center in the Valley.
These are some of the accomplishments your gifts made possible this past year:
• Grew and strengthened our Jobs program for graduates & guests at URM
• Established a Thrift Store (opening soon) as the first of several social enterprises we will use to train grads, hire grads, and provide a sustainable income for URM
• Installed Air Conditioning for URM guests for 1st time in 20 years in new building
• Doubled Return on Investment for URM fundraising events
• Completed renovation and opened up Concord building at Hope Gardens Family Center which significantly increased our capacity to help families in need
• Substantially increased URM Cash Reserves
• Hired two instructors for our Learning Center and obtained a grant from The LA Dodgers to upgrade computers and “Dodgerize” this important area of our program
These accomplishments, along with our everyday work of housing nearly 800 precious souls and serving over 2000 meals per day, would not be possible without your active involvement, participation, and sacrificial financial gifts. Thank you!
This is what makes me excited about the future, knowing you and Our Lord stand with us as we take on what seems to be an impossible task. The task of caring for and reaching many whom the world has cast off. One of our chaplains, John Russell, preached in chapel recently that the kingdom of God is like a shade tree, a big shade tree that invites people forgotten by the rest of the world into the shade. I realized as he shared that this is URM, a big shade tree that invites the least and the lost of this world back into the shade, into a loving environment, into a life changing environment. Thanks for making this work possible!
After 123 years of faithful service, we are not finished providing that shade, in fact, we are just beginning! Our overarching goal for the next 3 to 5 years is to: Decentralize Skid Row by expanding our services in outlying communities while measuring and sharing the outcomes of our life transforming work.
Specific plans for the coming year include:
• Strengthen our team by providing appropriate staff pay increases for the 1st time since the Great Recession.
• In an effort to decentralize services we hope to reach a capacity of 80% downtown, while reaching a capacity of 95% at Hope Gardens Family Center.
• In an effort to look after children until they graduate from high school and move to college, we are investigating long-term restorative housing for families who after graduating Hope Gardens do not have the means to move on their own.
• We will partner with Biola Professors to better measure and improve life transformation among our program participants.
• In an effort to further strengthen recovery we are investigating an offsite men’s and women’s recovery program. I believe we will soon have the means to make this a reality, possibly in fiscal year 2015/2016.
• We will continue to build our network by adding at least 1 key partner, like the incredible partnership with Pacific Coast Church of San Clemente, which mentors our men in recovery and holds Iron Man Conferences here at URM. We may enter into a local partnership with PCC helping them and another church establish a shelter in Dana Point in the future.
• We will establish partnerships with churches/agencies to engage neighborhoods which are producing most of our guests and the people on Skid Row. We want to strengthen young people and families, help them develop resilience to homelessness, to stem the flow into Skid Row.
• We will open our 1st URM Thrift Store in Covina in 6 weeks to train and hire graduates and provide a sustaining income for URM. We are hoping to find adjacent housing for our URM and Hope Gardens graduates who will be employed at The Thrift Store
• We will launch a race/walk to raise awareness and funds to alleviate homelessness.
• We will build reserves to 3 months of operating, and begin Phase 1 of a Capital Campaign to make improvements, i.e. new elevators downtown, and pay off mortgage of Hope Gardens. Though we plan to just begin this in fiscal year 2014/1015, my hope and belief is that this may be accomplished by fiscal year end 2015, and no later than fiscal year end 2016.
These are some planned bold steps, as we maintain our vital work on the streets of Skid Row while branching out into uncharted territory, but we know our God is faithful, and we know you will continue to stand with us as a vital partner.
We know none of our work could be accomplished without our Lord’s blessing and your generous gifts of love. Could you give your stamp of approval and your willingness to be part of the team that makes this happen by providing a generous financial gift today?
Bless you,
Run the LA Marathon’s “LA Big 5k” with Union Rescue Mission
Have you been looking of a reason to lace up your running shoes and get out and feel the brisk morning nip at your face? How about if your decision to run helps the many hurting people who enter our doors on Skid Row – to make a difference?
We would love to invite you to join team Union Rescue Mission at the LA Marathon’s “LA Big 5k” and run with us to raise support and fundraise to help hurting men, women, and children experiencing homelessness in Los Angeles! We’d love for you to be an active partner with us – operating in the LA area since 1891!
This is our first time as an official charity partner of the LA Big 5k, and we are super excited to get out and running! But we can’t do it without you. Fundraising is easy, and we help you get set up to be successful!
Whether you are a novice, or have been an experienced runner for years, we’ll provide you resources you need to get started and finish strong. With Union Rescue Mission you can train with your friends, win prizes, and most importantly – help those who need it the most. You can do it. And together, we can help end homelessness in Los Angeles!
For more information or to join the team (spots are limited) contact Josiah Crum at 213.347.6308 or Jcrum@urm.org!