Alternative Giving Campaign Kick-Off

Below is the speech that I gave for the Kick-Off of the Alternative Giving Campaign Press Conference on April 20, 2010. To check out the website see http://www.realchangesb.org/

Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice (CLUE) would like to thank Mayor Schneider and the City Council for their year long work on the critical problems of poverty and homelessness in our community. We also appreciate their ability to gather diverse stakeholders including the business community, social service workers, and faith communities and believe that this collaboration remains critical if we are to create real change. But we also recognize that WE are the city. The problems of poverty and homelessness are not only a concern for governments and social service agencies but for all of us.
CLUE supports the fundamental premise of the Alternative Giving campaign that the problem we face is not panhandlers. We support neither demonizing nor romanticizing those who are daily struggling on our streets. The campaign, then, creates an exciting challenge for all of us - the challenge for our community to give – creatively, abundantly, and responsibly to HELP our neighbors on the street.
But what does such neighborly giving mean practically? Where does your money go? The point of the Alternative Giving campaign is to encourage caring and thoughtful individuals to give directly to programs that connect those in need with local social services. It means that the dollars that you donate in local area businesses, from church budgets, or through text-giving, go directly to helping hands –to street outreach workers who seek to:
1) help people off the street and into more permanent, stable housing with services; (2) secure food for the hungry; (3) provide more space in shelters and critical medical care; (4) offer freedom from addiction and substance abuse. CLUE particularly encourages faith communities to join the city in this effort to encourage compassionate giving. Yet we believe that dollars are not enough. We urge everyone to go out into the streets to greet and recognize our brothers and sisters who need our help. Caring for the most vulnerable people in our city – the elderly, the mentally ill, the disabled, those without homes – needs to continue and increase. Compassionate action is neither exceptional nor optional. It is a fundamental expression of what it means to be human. It is our spiritual duty. And it is within our reach. Thank you.