Helping Hearts, Blog of Anne Sanders

I often brainstorm topics to write about for this blog. I keep a list of over 250 ideas to which I am always adding. But sometimes I miss the obvious. Have you heard of Volunteers of America ? Neither had I, until today. It’s a Christian organization that’s been around since 1896. It provides help for homelessness, people with mental health problems, children, communities, veterans, those with disabilities or substance abuse problems and seniors. It also provides emergency services for people in crisis. As its name implies, it provides its ministry just in America. It provides services to more than two million people in over 400 communities in 46 states and the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. You can search for a local office near you at its website . I love its statement of Why We Do What We Do:   We are Volunteers of America. And we are the first to step forward, Taking on the most crushing problems. The dire. The hopeless. The untouchable. And we make a...

It’s a crazy idea, starting a running group for homeless people, but that’s how Back On My Feet (BoMF) began, with one runner thinking that helping nine men add a regular discipline to their lives might help them get them back on track. Back on My Feet “Residential Members” (meaning homeless persons) are getting jobs and housing and improving their outlook on life, too. Seventy-eight percent are sure they’ll get a job they like and 94 percent are hopeful about the future while almost 900 have gotten jobs and over 600 have found a home. It starts with running. Attendance, mileage and attitude are tracked on every run. After 30 days in the program, each Residential Member who maintains 90% attendance at the morning runs moves to Back on My Feet’s “Next Steps” phase. In this phase, BoMF staff work with Residential Members “to build a road map toward self-sufficiency which includes financial literacy and skill-building classes with for-profit and nonprofit partners.” After t...

Next month there are two days to remind us of people who are often forgotten—the homeless. In 2011 there were 636,017 people homeless in America. World Homeless Day is October 10 and World Habitat Day is October 1. In honor of these two days, I am featuring an interview today with Angela Smith. Angela is the author of two books End of Mae and No Money Marketing , and the writer of popular blog Dandilyon Fluff . However, Angela also experienced being homeless on and off for five years from 1986 to 1991. As someone who pulled her way out of homelessness, she is an example of how the system works and how it doesn’t. 1.       How did you become homeless? I became homeless as a runaway at 16.  At first I stayed with random friends but when that hospitality ran out my only choice was to live directly on the street. The first night I was wandering around in the dark confused on what to do next. A carload of teenage guys starte...