Christial Sierra (shown on left in above photo with President Rich Lewis on the right and “King” Matt Strnad, who invited Christal, in the center) visited Liberty to speak with our 16 attending members about her non-profit [501(C(3)] venture of the last 20 years in Owosso: Angel’s Hands Outreach has grown from what was basically an empty garage to a 4,000-square-foot distributions center in the Owosso area and 3 other Outreach locations, including one at Flint Driven Church near the intersection of Ballenger and Corunna. Christal stated that her own recovery from addiction helped prompt her to facilitate others’ efforts to make life changes lifestyle changes, and Angel’s Hands works with a wide variety of issues and deficits, including addiction recovery, training, volunteer, functional monitoring, food distribution (they now have 7 large freezers), household refurbishing, personal items and appliances (including pickup and delivery), and assistance in navigating complex paperwork and community network facilitation. One interesting element is accepting a $5 donation (waived for veterans) and giving people a bag that they can fill with whatever they can put into the bag and take home the items. In addition to the 7 area churches that provide the bulk of their financial contributions, Angel’s Hands has also received corporate sponsorships from large corporations (Blue Cross/Blue Shield is one) and they have been awarded some additional funds by groups that recognize and reinforce their community impact. (For instance, the organization remained open and working to give the community support all through the Covid crunch and served 3200 people meals on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day!) Volunteers are always welcome!!
“Other stuff”:
- Phil Holmblade received 2 birthday cards from the Club while having only one birthday. In a related matter, a comment made about all wisdom (outgrowth of experience) residing in gray-haired folk, Mic Goulet made a double-edged remark about all the Club’s wisdom sitting at the northerly table.
- Jeff Gauger announced that Sleep in Heavenly Peace (the national organization) has assembled over 400,000 beds for kids who now do not have to sleep on a floor.
- A CANUSA representative “crashed” our meeting this morning to deliver 2 impressive overshirts to the Club and witness the auctioning of these to Club members (John Farah and Rich Lewis).
- John Farah rubbed salt in the wounds of University of Michigan football fans about the recent weekend’s final-second” loss.
- Jeff Dennings fined Steve Schlott for running interference for the clearly “over-fined” Greg Hilliker.
- After John Farah paid for “Jumping the gun” in attempting to propose fines before President Rich had declared that “fines are open”, he paid another fine for failure “to wear a cheerful countenance at all times”. His countenance WAS, indeed, cheerful when he eagerly showed off photos of his youngest (newborns) grandchildren.
Joe Cozart had a chance to draw the Queen of Diamonds to win his share of the $789 “50/50 Progressive Pot”, but missed her card in the diminishing card array.
Until next time, “Promise Yourself…”