Turn Your Head… or Engage

This dream was shared by Tim Danos, a recent graduate, aspiring teacher and musician. Tim has a passion for helping people and is involved in many volunteer organizations. One of Tim’s dreams is to start a program to help homeless musicans. After sharing his dream on our old website, Tim was contacted by The Musician’s Project, an organization making a documentary about health care problems for musicians. Tim hopes to continue to work with organizations like The Musician’s Project in the future.

When I went down to New Orleans a few summers ago, I helped build homes for poor musicians. I really would like to try to bring that idea to my community – helping homeless musicians be fed, get some gigs, and create/work through programs that can help improve quality of life. Maybe I could set up a program that could teach free lessons to some homeless musicians and help them work on polishing their skills? Many of my friends are musicians (and music appreciators) and if we all banded together, this may be a great way of helping our fellow brethren out and having a real impact.

I wonder if this model has been done before in other cities? Maybe so? If so, it would be worthwhile for me to see how it works and what we could do to infuse it into our own community. If not, I am open to  building pathways to the future.

Tim also shared this story with us a few weeks later…

Yesterday morning, I woke up later than the usual, shuffling down the stairs into the kitchen to fix myself breakfast (Waffles with blueberries and butter covered with maple syrup alongside a glass of OJ). Along with my morning tradition, I picked up the Post and read through a few articles, including this article: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/03/AR2010010302060.html?hpid=moreheadlines.

It is all about this group of volunteers from a Methodist church in downtown D.C. Those volunteers wake up early every morning and give homeless people a place to eat breakfast, use clean bathrooms, and have a few hours to avoid the harshly cold city weather. I was impressed with the stories of those volunteers and was even more inspired by Rob Farley, the de-facto program director, who said “you either turn your head or engage.”

While I was reading the article (and of course, enjoying my toasted waffles), I counted my blessings, as I was not only enjoying engaging myself with the news and delicious food, but was doing so in the comfort of my folk’s home.

Now that I know where that group is located (it’s actually close to places I have worked for in the past), while I’m on winter break for a few more weeks, I’d like to spend a few mornings helping that group in the downtown, sharing the news and waffles with those less fortunate than I am.

One Comment on “Turn Your Head… or Engage

  1. Pretty nice post. I just stumbled upon your blog and wanted to say that I have really enjoyed browsing your blog posts. In any case I’ll be subscribing to your feed and I hope you write again soon!

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