MEETING MINUTES— 7.14.2016
Location: Lincoln, Nebraska – The Pizza Ranch -84th & Lexington | 11:30am-1:00pm
Present: 21 in attendance
Members: Diana Schilf, Nga Vu, Kolleen Meyer-Krikac, Joanne Bartles, Sherri Recker, Barb Tyler, Kelly Jensen, Sydney Stanard, Darlene Sabatka, Tim Kirkpatrick, Patty Gerlach, Ben Petersen, Mark Whitehead, Fred Knight, Larry Gadeken, RJ Lipert, Carl Tesch
Guests: Amy Buresch, Dr. Tara Mohl, Pastor Tom, Stacie Conner
Introductions
The June minutes were approved
The hat was passed around for donations for the People’s City Mission for Today’s Lunch and Learn!
Member Spotlight
Current Member- Kolleen Meyer-Krikac
Kolleen is a certified Life coach and a licensed professional counselor. She offers workshops for counselors, social workers, and anyone else in mental health. The workshops are excellent for those looking for personal and professional growth by enhancing time management, organizational and communication skills.
She recently began offering private practice workshops for those interested in going into private practice as well. Check out her website with Balanced Life! www.Balanced-life.us.
Other Discussion:
SHOW AND SHINE. Old Cars, new cars! Come check them out. Sponsored by T.O. Haas Tire (Fred Knight)
It is taking place on Sunday, August 7th at the Lancaster Event Center. Show Hours are 12-4pm
Fund Raiser for ELBA: August, 18th 10am-11am and Lunch from 11:30-1pm.
$25 for non-members. Founder of Firespring will be there
Social Chair Update:
Salt Dogs– Thursday, July 21st– Game starts at 6:35pm. Party van available at 4:30pm. Look for NLBA BANNER! (Free for members and $35 for guests)
Golf Tournament– Wednesday, August 31st at 2:00pm. 2:30pm Tee Time at Highlands Golf Course.
FAC Friday, October 7th at Ploughshare-4:30pm
Holiday Party Tentatively December, 13th 2016
Treasurer’s Report:
Checking account has $2,672.00
$3000 in CD’s
Police/Fire Update:
-Projects: Pop with a Cop in Belmont TBD
-Cook Motor Sports- 2251 Humphrey. Popular place for kids to do donuts with their vehicles, working to curtail that activity.
-7/21/16 6:30pm Belmont Recreation. Community Conversations. Chief and select officers will be having talks in regards to their role in the community.
-Black Lives Matter Rally downtown at 6pm on North side of Capital. Will be stopping by the Governor’s Mansion, the Police Station and then back to the Capital to conclude their event
Continued Homicides-
-14th and Adams- Clerk was shot at the Quick Shop. This is currently an active investigation so not many details here
– Portia/Knox area Officer Shooting 6/26/16- Gentleman shot two young ladies. Ultimately suspect was killed by police.
-Jan 31st – Anthony Wells, 1800 Knox following a domestic disturbance. He fled from the area and came back to shoot and shot an innocent onlooker.
-Overall, fewer fights and parties in Lincoln but homicides have risen. They are not connected to each other and they are not considered gang activity, just bizarre, out of the ordinary incidents.
Featured Speaker:
Pastor Tom with The People’s City Mission
The clinic is completely staffed by volunteers.
Turns out two of our very own NLBA members are connected with Pastor Tom; Mark Whitehead started the Safe Place program. (Signage around town) and RJ and his company handle the security for the houses!
Tom is originally from Los Angeles and has been doing this for 11 years. He has noticed that the people here in the Lincoln community are very generous and giving but fully unaware of what is really going on with the poverty in this town.
Stats: Lincoln poverty rate now exceeds the national average. The group with the highest number in poverty is actually under the age of 18. Homelessness in Lincoln is continuing to grow, especially with children.
Fact: 1% of a cities population is homeless. For Lincoln, that is approx 2,500 homeless folks. Misconception is that not all are transient. (Approximately 300 transient folks on the street.)
The Mission began in 1907, mostly due to the huge train depot. Nobody “rides the rails” anymore.
Two kinds of homeless: Chronic and Crisis. (Crisis- Homeless once, for instance domestic abuse)
1 in 4 women are in some sort of a domestic abuse situation.
Pastor Tom refers to the “Quiet suffering in Lincoln”, as we are not necessarily exposed to it.
The saddest part is that out of the 350 people at The People’s City Mission, only 77 have a drug or alcohol problem. Consequently, there are more children than alcoholics that are homeless. Did you know it costs $25,000 per day to run the mission?
Ok, so what’s the solution? It’s the public. The public has all the “stuff”. Time-stuff, cash-stuff. We need to apply this “stuff” and get involved with the community. “You can’t tax enough people to solve poverty.” Tom’s organization started a free clinic, it’s open 40 hours a week and only costs about $8 to come in. Here they offer dental and vision care and perform root canals and eye surgeries. There is also a pharmacy. This is able to happen because people are donating their TIME.
Time is a better gift than money. Tom says, connect to the story instead of there just being a “transaction”-Mentor a child instead of just giving them money.
Marketing is also a large solution to poverty. Giving is simply another form of consumption.
The Clinic and maximizing recycling have had the two biggest impacts recently. Sell the bad stuff and give the good stuff away to those who need it. This is where recycling came into play: Made more money and helped more people with this concept.
Tom would like to begin a new program that offers the homeless trade skills. For instance, teaching them to be welders or diesel mechanics. This option would be more than the Band-Aid solution.
Q: Any possibility to work with the Career Academy? Currently it is specifically for high school kids, but could it be tailored to work with the Mission?
A: It costs money and there is a waiting list, possibly would need a sponsorship of some kind.
Q: Clothes that go to the drop boxes, do they just go right to the city mission?
A: We sort, recycle and give away the very best stuff to the homeless. It all goes to help the homeless
Q: What gets recycled?
A: Clothing, shoes, purses etc.
NLBA Meetings:
- The next Association meeting is Aug 11th, 2016
- THE PIZZA RANCH – 84th & Lexington | 11:30am- 1:00pm
- August Speaker- TBD
- Next Board meeting: Thursday, Sept 1st at RJ Lipert’s Home: 1300 Pelican Bay at 3:30pm
Meeting Adjourned.
Respectfully submitted by Sydney Stanard NLBA Secretary Sydney.Stanard@mutualofomaha.com
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