One of the coolest parts of this journey is all the collaborations that have come together.
Middlebury Chapel came to us with the idea of creating a school to help the folks that live here learn marketable skills.
Electric, plumbing, woodworking, welding. Anything that people could learn that would help them find work or make products or start their own businesses.
We then started working with Eric Brown of Running with Horses Ministry. He has a vision of helping people become certified in specific skills.
Based on this we applied for a grant with Catholic Charities. This was through their Catholic Campaign for Human Development.
I’m super excited to let you know they have just awarded us $2000 for our Makers School.
All this money is going to tools for these Makers Spaces.
We originally applied for a $5000 grant. We made a list of items we were interested in purchasing for the charity.
Here is that list:
| Purchase Used Kiln | $300 |
| Purchase Potter’s Wheel | $500 |
| Screen Printing Kit | $250 |
| Ink Jet Printer | $45 |
| Welding Starter Kit | $150 |
| 3D Printer | $900 |
| 3D Printer Filament x4 | $100 |
| Coffee Roaster | $585 |
| Assortment of Green Coffee Beans | $200 |
| Solar Starter Kit | $190 |
| Solar Energy Storage Battery | $73 |
| Painting Set | $90 |
| Assorted Canvases x4 | $100 |
| Whittling Starter Kits | $100 |
| Wood Power Lathe | $180 |
| Wood Carving Set | $80 |
| Airbrush Kit | $120 |
| Glass Sculpting Kit | $1,000 |
| Initial Glass Rods | $100 |
I’ve also made a shopping wish list of some of these items on Amazon. You can check that out here: http://a.co/5uEAcKY
Empowering people is a very American ideal. It’s what we like to see. We like to see people take an opportunity and succeed on their own.
On top of this, I’ve seen first hand that many of these people here want the same exact thing. They want an opportunity to succeed.
So this is why we wanted to create this Makers School. We want to help these people succeed.
Our hope is that these folks will find a skill they like and then use it in a way to help them move forward in their lives.
If they make a product we can help them sell it in our store and online.
If they learn a skill we can help connect them with people that are hiring for that skill.
I have gotten a rare opportunity to spend every single weekday working with the homeless. The Homeless Charity is unique because this isn’t a place where homeless people are just eating and sleeping and then kicked out on the street. The Homeless Charity is a place where if these people want a meal, if they want to not get rained on when they sleep, if they want Internet, if they want a shower or laundry: THEY HAVE TO BUILD IT THEMSELVES.
No one has ever just done the work for these people. If they wanted it they had to create it.
That’s not to say they don’t get a lot of support. And that support comes completely from you, our supporters, volunteers and donors.
You bring them meals, you help them create new living spaces, you’ve helped them with their gardens.
Support like yours is how the world works. Everyone needs a hand up. I would never have gone to college had it not been for people like you who believed in me.
I feel quite confident I would never have had the opportunity to be in the position I am today, helping the homeless, if it hadn’t been for a long series of people giving me a hand up and then me taking that opportunity to move forward.
That is the principle of this Makers School. Through grants such as what we’ve been given by Catholic Charities, and through the incredible support of people like you, we can give these people a hand up to move forward in their lives.
We believe that picking a skill and working on it every day will be a requirement of staying at The Homeless Charity.
We will be showing off the beginnings of our makers school July 1 at the 1st Annual Middlebury Festival. So stay tuned for that.
If you are interested in helping us build out our Makers School we would LOVE any of the items here on Amazon:
http://a.co/5uEAcKY
