Doing little things for little people is big!

I don’t wish for hurricanes, earthquakes, or any kind of natural disaster. But there are days when I wish we had some kind of a spectacular accomplishment that might help major donors and wealthy foundations to recognize our value in our unique role.

No, we haven’t been sending material goods, food or dollars to stricken victims around the world. Instead, we’ve been

Trying to get a rescue inhaler to a prisoner who’s struggling with asthma attacks

Putting the finishing touches on a 9-month project where we got traffic fines paid for an indigent mother in Detroit, thus enabling her to resume visits with her two sons in prison…visits that got banned 3 years ago by unpaid traffic tickets

Doing our best to get a new typewriter ribbon for a wrongly-convicted inmate in the U.P. who needs his typewriter to prepare his own legal documents

Rushing to get clothing and shoes for an indigent ex-offender who found, upon his release, that the half-way house to which he had been assigned offered no provisions

Hoping to persuade a national agency to help us get appropriate prison care and treatment for a guy with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, now in solitary confinement because he doesn’t follow orders

Exploring how best to show love and compassion to a transgender inmate who has been rejected by his family, mocked by peers and abused by officers

Pressuring the Department to give back a CPAP to a prisoner with sleep apnea. He was using the apparatus before he was incarcerated. The Michigan prison doctor told him he didn’t need it, and refused to allow him to keep it.

Spectacular? Hard hitting? Headline-attracting? Intriguing to major donors? Nope, but it’s what we do, responding to over a hundred calls a week.

We opt to stay working with the marginalized, one at a time, using Fr. Greg Boyle’s philosophy:  “If our primary concern is results, we will choose to work only with those who give us good ones.” 

Because, as he states: “The wrong idea has taken root in the world. And the idea is this: there just might be some lives out there that matter less than other lives.” 


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