Regarding America

Gregory Boyle and the Power of Boundless Compassion

By Daniel Hamon

Tattoos on the Heart, a touching yet heart-warming book written by Gregory Boyle, recounts the many instances in which Father Boyle has served and made a difference for the gang-involved youth in Los Angeles county. Father Boyle is a 2011 recipient of the Opus Prize, which is "given annually to recognize unsung heroes of any faith tradition, anywhere in the world, solving today’s most persistent social problems...winners combine an entrepreneurial spirit with an abiding faith to combat seemingly intractable global issues like poverty, illiteracy, hunger, disease, and injustice.  Opus Prize winners demonstrate that change is possible, empowering and inspiring all of us."

Father Boyle founded Homeboy Industries in 1992 with the mission to assist at-risk and formerly gang involved youth to become positive and contributing members of society through job placement, training and education. In addition, Fr. Boyle provides support and encouragement for young people in need of opportunity and unconditional love. He writes:

Gangs are bastions of conditional love - one false move, and you find yourself outside. Slights are remembered, errors in judgment held against you forever. If a homie doesn't step up to the plate, perform the required duty, he can be relegated to "no good" status. This is a state from which it is hard to recover. Homeboy Industries seeks to be a community of unconditional love. Community will always trump gang any day. Derek Walcott writes, "Either I am a nobody or I am a nation." Our place at Homeboy is this touchstone of resilience. You discover your true self in this "nation." Homies who used to work at Homeboy always return on their days off or on their lunch break. A home said to me once, "I just came by to get my fix."

"Of what?" I ask him.

"Love," he says.

Everyone is just looking to be told that who he or she is is right and true and whole acceptable.

Please visit Homeboy Industries to learn more and to find out Fr. Boyle speaking schedule.

Photo: Molly Johnston       www.GonzagaBulletin.com

Gleanings for the Hungry

By Daniel Hamon

Since 1982, volunteers have been coming to Gleanings for the Hungry in Dinuba, CA to play an active role in feeding the poor and needy of the world. Most of these volunteers, about 1,200 during the summer months, are high school students who pay $85 to spend a week working at a fruit line where peaches and nectarines are sorted, cut, dried and then loaded into trucks to be shipped to feed the world's hungry people.

Scholarships for College - The Kalamazoo Promise

By Daniel Hamon

In 2005, a small group of donors started The Kalamazoo Promise, a non-profit corporation that has the goal of providing "each Kalamazoo Public School graduate with the opportunity to attend post-secondary education with up to a 100% tuition scholarship."

The eligibility and requirements seem simple enough: students in the Kalamazoo Public Schools who have graduated and attended four years or more and who go to any public university or community college in the State of Michigan. Once enrolled in college, beneficiaries need to maintain a 2.0 GPA, a minimum of 12 credit hours and make continuing progress toward their degrees.

At a time when a college education is becoming the minimum requirement for entry into the job market, the anonymous donors of The Kalamazoo Promise will surely make a major impact on the lives and standards of living of many Kalamazoo, MI high-school graduates.

Photo - KalamazooPromise.com

Rooms for the Homeless

By Daniel Hamon

According to the Columbus Dispatch, fifteen homeless people in Colorado Springs will be inside for Christmas, thanks to a mysterious donor who paid for their motel rooms. The donor, a woman that said her name was Linda Craft, paid in advance for four rooms insisting that they be used to provide shelter to some of the homeless campers that have been gathering near Interstate 25.

As reported by The Gazette, Maggie Spence, one of the beneficiaries "welcomed the weeklong shelter as an aid in finally kicking the pneumonia she’s been battling for weeks."

Linda Craft is another example of people in America quietly taking the initiative to help their neighbors in need.

Comforting Trees

By Daniel Hamon

For those who have lost their jobs, hope or faith, Sharon Girulat offers comfort in the form of a Christmas tree:

Two years ago she phoned the owner of a Frosty Farms lot and asked if she could have some leftover trees. They gave her about 50. She and her husband Rollin delivered them, along with decoration kits they made up, to some churches. Last year she called Frosty Farms again, as well as Johnson Brothers tree farm. She got another 50 trees and recruited a few colleagues to help make the deliveries.

This Christmas, 50 turned into 500. Peltzer Pines, which has several farms in Orange County, offered up 350 trees when Sharon came knocking. She put an ad on Craigslist, asking people to sing out if they had lost their job or their hope or their faith, and would find comfort in a Christmas tree.

Americans' Charitable Giving: $300 billion in 2008

By Daniel Hamon

In the midst of a recession, Americans donated an estimated $307 billion for charitable causes in 2008, marking the second year in a row in which Americans have given more than $300 billion. A report from the Giving USA Foundation tracks giving by types of donors and recipients and shows that charitable giving by individuals continues to be the largest component of all donations, reaching $229 billion or 75% of the total. Religious and educational institutions received $146 billion or 48% of the total.

USNS Comfort

By Daniel Hamon

A U.S. hospital ship completed a four-month mission to provide humanitarian care to areas of seven Latin American countries where medical care is limited or not easily available. The USNS Comfort arrived in Haiti on April 9 and left Nicaragua on July 14 to return to the United States. Some of the results include: 100,049 treated patients, 1,657 surgeries, 135,000 filled prescriptions and 15,003 dental patients.

Art for Orphans: Isabelle's Global Orphan Project

By Daniel Hamon

Isabelle Redford became so concerned about the plight of orphaned children in Haiti that she decided to find a way to help. Since she has always loved to draw, she started drawing and selling gift cards to raise money to help care for orphans.  Through her efforts, Isabelle raised $10,000 that funded an orphanage in Haiti and will soon fund another one in Malawi. Isabelle is only 7-years old but says she wants to keep doing this for a "very long time, maybe forever."

A Soldier's Wish List

By Daniel Hamon

 "In 2003, my son was called up to go to the middle East. When I went to Fort Riley, Kansas to  say goodbye to my son, I met a young man who didn't have any family there to say goodbye to him. I asked if I could 'adopt' him and another who was there with his wife and son and going back for his second time. That is how it started. With 2 troopers then 4, then 10, then 20, and then 150. It has now grown to over 40,000 troops that have asked to receive boxes for themselves and others in their units. " Explains Julieann Najar, founder of "A Soldier's Wish List".

Ending Poverty in Our Lifetime

By Daniel Hamon

25,000 people die every day due to hunger-related illnesses. To put this loss of human life in perspective, think of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami happening every 10 days. The horrific impact that poverty and hunger has in communities throughout the world is something that weighs heavily in Zack Schuler's heart and he is doing something about it.