Faith, Hope, and Believing

Before I begin, I am going to apologize to Melva Florence, executive director at The LaStraw (pronounced “Last Straw”) in Greensboro, NC. Melva, I saw your comment on the iParticipateNH blog posting about our journey about a month ago and I never responded. I never reached out to you and told you how wonderful and meaningful your comments were, well really - still are, to us. How you were the first organization to believe in us – to accept our invitation (through Facebook, no less!). I never even alluded to it or highlighted it.

Truth be told, I was rendered absolutely speechless by your words and your belief in what we are trying to accomplish (“Tell her that it’s really really difficult to get you to be quiet. She should consider herself a miracle worker!” Tim quips slyly from the corner. Well, jeez! I guess the joke is on him - he signed on to take a fifty-day ride with chatty Cathy over here!). But, seriously, Melva, I was/still am completely floored. So, please accept my sincerest apologies for my tardy response, but I wanted to make sure that I had my words back so I could thank you properly. If I were any closer (and we will be soon!), I would need to give you a big ole bear hug.

For those who have no idea what I am referring to, this preemptive apology probably seems out of place. But it is very well deserved.

About a month ago, I was having a “day”. One of those days where nothing is going right - a day where you feel like you can’t accomplish anything because you reach impasses at every turn. Left turn, SMACK (hit a brick wall); right turn, SMACK (is that the same brick wall?); left turn, SMACK (you have to be kidding me! How many of those could possibly be in here!). I had a rain cloud following my every step. Even Eeyore had asked me over for lunch and for a lesson in ornery comportment, because his dour nature couldn’t hold a candle to mine (at least that day, that is). We had been turned down by a few organizations. We couldn’t get seemingly anyone to call us back. Some people had been asking some very difficult questions, challenging the absolute foundations of our journey. On that same day, about a month ago, I looked at the iParticipateNH’s blog and saw the following comment:

“The Civic Projects seeks to bring awareness to community-based service organizations hard-pressed by today’s economic climate.” There is a gospel song titled “I Almost Gave Up” by Kurt Carr. Community based service is rooted in faith, hope and believing. Faith in people wanting to help, hope that we are making a difference and believing one day things will be different. In most cases especially with small community-based service organizations it is one person hanging on to that faith…hope…belief…and dragging others along. That is me.

When I received Kirsten’s message/invitation – on Facebook no less, I had been toying with some major decisions. For years we have had a Geocities website and in the last year, we stopped updating it. When Yahoo decided to close Geocities I had to decide whether or not to take on the added expense of a domain, technology coordinator and the added effort of keeping the content on the website up to date considering I felt like we are not making a difference and it wasn’t even worth it – although I would never say it out loud. I was also struggling with deciding what our 2010 was going to look like and if it was worth extending our organization even that little bit.

Kirsten’s message/invitation perked me right up. It made me feel, when I needed most to feel, that somebody understood what I was going through. Their impending visit to Greensboro has given me energy to make it to 01/17/2010 and beyond. Tim Malcolm and Kirsten L’ Orange are taking a leap of faith, hoping they can make a difference and I believe they will be successful. I couldn’t be happier to be a part of their journey.

Melva L. Florance, Executive Director


The LaStraw


Greensboro, NC – Stop #14

And I stopped. I read it again. The cloud evaporated. The walls, though not disappearing, did shrink down a bit - enough that if Tim gave me a leg up, I could easily, if not semi gracefully, scramble over. I called to cancel my lunch date with a certain cartoon character (his spread is never worth the trip anyway). I thumbed my nose at all our obstacles. Immature yes, but it is more mature than sticking out my tongue, crossing my eyes, jamming my thumbs in my ears and wiggling my fingers. Tim, (who is much more mature than I) simply and quietly, as is his manner, deemed it a benchmark, a small victory of sorts. Because, beyond raising awareness and motivating others to start volunteering at local organizations, we want our journey to remind these community organizations to recognize how vitally important and appreciated they are.

Melva hit the nail right on the head – “Community based service is rooted in faith, hope and believing. Faith in people wanting to help, hope that we are making a difference and believing one day things will be different.” I couldn’t have said it any better. Melva, your belief in us has been an incredible motivator. You, and all of the organizations out there fighting for change, have given us the strength to make this leap of faith, because we believe that, together, we will make a difference. We couldn’t be happier to have you as stop #14!