Hello to my friends and family!

I'd love to invite you into a happy little piece of my world.... and to an organization that is near and dear to my heart...  Because People Matter :-)

I have worked with this organization for almost 3 years now in a volunteer staff capacity and absolutely love it.  We have several different outreach programs that we provide, and the one that I work closest with is our Thursday night homeless outreach - Night Strike.  During this outreach we provide multilple services to our houseless friends in the form of a warm meal, hygiene products, clothing, footwashing, haircuts, etc... But the most important thing we provide is letting our friends know that they are LOVED, they are KNOWN, and that they MATTER.  These marginilized individuals are often looked down upon, looked away from, cursed at, or worse.  When we are under the Burnside Bridge with them we offer them a safe place to spend time without judgement.  We give them an opportunity to breathe and share a cup of coffee and a smile.  We get to know their names, their stories, and to see some move forward into housing and jobs, and even come back as volunteers themselves. If you'd like to look more closely at what we do, you can look at our main web page http://www.bpmpdx.org .

More personally, working with this comunity has provided me the opportunity to grow myself.  As many of you know, the last couple of years have brought some profound changes to my life and I don't think I would have been able to get through them without having first starting working with our not so little community.  I don't know where our friends have been. if they have a criminal record, if they've been to prison, or any of that. I simply love on them because they matter, and if I can do that for them, then how can I not do that for those who are closest to me in my life. I was able to approach my struggles with an open mind and heart and to simply go back to the basics of LOVE.

I often share a little joke that my day job takes my soul, and working with my friends on Thusday nights give it back ;-)

In addition to my volunteer time, I also help contribute financially.  And as we all know, almost everything we do in life takes money.  We opperate 47 Thursdays of the year and it costs about $800.00 each week to provide the services that we do. In addition to our monthly contributors, we also hold an annual Gala and an occasional Bowl-A-Thon.  I am on a team and am trying to raise about $200.00 by this Sunday May 26th, 2019. I know this is short notice, and I apologize for that, and anything you are able to help with would be greatly appreciated.  Luckily we aren't raising money based off our scores as I usually end up getting more gutter rolls then pin hits... the bowling gene from my grandpa obviously skipped me... 

Thank you for reading a bit about what I do and how it brings growth and joy in my life.  

Have an amazing day, a beautiful Memorial Weekend ( and huge shout out and sincere Thank You to all my friends and family who have served in our Armed Forces!!!! ) 

You are KNOWN, you are LOVED, and you MATTER!

So much love to each of you!

Michelle

Thank you for supporting the 2019 Night Strike BOWL-A-THON!

Our awesome peeps will be bowling in teams on Sunday, May 26th at Big Al's in Beaverton.  We'd love if you could join us for the fun, jump in on a team, or build your own bowling team!  It's all for a great cause, NIGHT STRIKE!