As I think back over the last fifteen years I have so many great memories.
- Taking the staff to New York for a conference and chasing down the hotel van through the streets of Queens so we could get back to the hotel
- Being delayed in Chicago because of weather returning from a conference in Boston with Jenny Ballard who made the extended stay a pure joy
- Seeing so many staff complete their master’s degree, get married or start families
- Parading down Lincoln because our then Executive Director wanted all the staff to see the beautiful Hibiscus blooming outside Penny John’s
- Counting 500,000 pennies at Eastland Mall for Street Relief
- Watching Sharon Hafer drive a 1937 truck that was donated to us that barely had a floorboard out of the parking lot
- Sitting in the Commissioners’ office with Patty Avery and Peggy Bazaldua making sure every word of Destination: Home conveyed the exact thought that was intended
- Being surprised with Luzada Hayes Day in the City of Evansville and the great video – Aug. 6 will always be etched in my memoryWe have laughed and we’ve cried (well I have a lot) but through it all we have done it together. Nothing worthwhile ever happens in a vacuum. The quest to end homelessness cannot be accomplished by one person, or one agency. It takes the whole community. It’s based on relationships. To help a family move from being without a home one day, into an apartment the next, takes relationship. Maintaining a budget of $1.6 million per year takes relationship. To change the operating procedures of multiple agencies to participate in coordinated assessment takes relationship.I value the relationships that I have established over the last fifteen years with all of you. It is time to end one chapter of this quest but I am more than confident that the next chapter will be even more exciting than the first. Thank you for walking with me, letting me lead at times, and letting me trail behind when I struggled to keep up with all of you. I now pass the mantel on to continue the quest to end homelessness, to ALL of you.
With a grateful heart, I bid you ado.
~John Lennon
“A dream you dream alone is only a dream. A dream you dream together becomes reality.”