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.” 


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Half-a-race!

The HFP Drag-Racing Fund-Raiser had the potential of being extremely successful, and could have raised several thousand dollars. Let's just say it was partly successful. For background purposes I'll explain that I was racing a 1963 supercharged Studebaker Lark that has a reputation of being one of the fastest stock Studebakers in drag racing today. The engine was built by one of the finest Studebaker engine mechanics in the country, and the car many times has achieved quarter-mile runs in less than 14 seconds! We promised to make at least ten passes in the Pure Stock Muscle Car Drags at Mid-Michigan Motorplex in Stanton, Michigan, this past weekend, and we asked for pledges ONLY ON THOSE RUNS REACHED IN LESS THAN 14 SECONDS. On Friday, here's how we fared: Run #1 13.936 @ 101.24 mph Run #2 14.027 @ 101.30 mph Run #3 14.091 @ 100.88 mph Run #4 13.805 @ 102.84 mph Run #5 14.058 @ 101.26 mph By the 5th run we discovered that ...
Read more

Gregory John McCormick: 1964-2008

Itchy is dead. The lifeless body of this talented rock musician, whose band Shock Therapy was a popular group especially in Europe, was found in a field in Detroit last Wednesday, November 5. The Wayne County Coroner's office informed father Glenn McCormick that the body of his son Gregory, better known to all of us as Itchy, bore no signs of trauma. Glenn said that Itchy, who had been living at his father's dental lab in Detroit, had been drinking to excess for some time. While the toxicology report has not been released yet, the general consensus seems to be that he drank himself to death. Our agency, while still named INNOCENT, first got involved with Itchy in 2005. The Detroit native, who called Germany his home, got involved in some unfortunate activity that placed him in the Michigan State prison system on a charge of arson of a dwelling. It was really just a bonfire in an alley, but an alleged parole violation placed him in prison for 1-20 years. I personally sat w...
Read more

Three lives, connected by a divine thread

My kids say it should be a book! The Doug, Pat and Mark story is a doozie!   About 25 years ago, while fighting to free Maurice Carter from prison, I read a newspaper column written by Pat Shellenbarger of the Grand Rapids Press on the topic of eyewitness identification. I contacted Pat re that story. That led to a friendship between Doug and Pat that continues to this day.   In subsequent months, Pat would go on to assist me in an investigation into the Maurice Carter case that eventually led to solving the crime.  That particular episode became a chapter in my book about the Carter case, SWEET FREEDOM, published in 2006.   Fast forward to 2009, A New York businessman claims wrongful conviction, and while serving time in a Michigan prison is handed a copy of my book. Mark Hartman, who was also convicted in Berrien County, was amazed at the similarity of these two stories and tried to reach out to me. His letters bounced.   Persisting in his efforts to c...
Read more