Today marks the end of our first year on the corner as Blue Dream Ministries! It’s been quite a year and well over $30,000 in food and personal care items donated from so many to those on the corner (and a few shelters) throughout our time together. So far we still maintain a ratio of 50 to 1, meaning that for every dollar donated, through our partnerships we are able to offer 50 dollars worth of assistance. This comes in various forms including soap, shampoo, toothbrushes, food, heat packs during the winter months, clothing (both light and heavy depending on the season), even some basic transportation help here and there, etc.
Sometimes this help has meant the difference between comfort and suffering, and during those cold winter months when some of our guys are outside all winter long, I’ve wondered if it meant the difference between life and death too. I’ve read reports of deaths in winters warmer than this last one, but God knows better than I do how things like that work.
I’m happy that people really do get that the help is a matter of others coming together and caring what happens to them and that I hear so many thanking God during the prayer and knowing God cares about them too. We’ve all known the difference between feeling alone and being comforted in our times of need.
I’ve been very blessed….when I first put up my little table on the corner, I’ve said before, I just felt silly as everyone watched me set up. Our ministry is so much smaller than some of the others that were setting up in years previous and I just felt like “What can we really do?”, but we’ve seen a tremendous amount of acceptance and support and I’m looking forward to another year!
