Just before Christmas, Danny and I were interviewed by Jonathan Ahl on Iowa Public Radio’s national award-winning program, “The Exchange” along with others who help the Iowa homeless population. Those other guests included Ken Dohmen, Operations Manager of Central Iowa Shelter & Services; David Tucker, a client of Ken’s organization; Joe Stevens, the executive director of Joppa Outreach; and Ashley Jared, Assistant Communications Director at Iowa Finance Authority. It was really wonderful to be in the company of these people, and of course a thrill to get to talk about this important problem on a program with such a large audience. Have a listen below, or download the MP3 here.

Danny Heggen and Justin Norman interviewed on “The Exchange.”

As some of you might remember, last year a small troupe of friends and I celebrated Buy Nothing Day on Black Friday, encouraging people to purchase less excess stuff and to donate to those starving to death instead. This simple message has been relayed many times around this time of year, but usually the focus is on giving to the poor, without much attention paid to the massive amount of money Americans spend on gifts for the not-so-poor each year. We hoped to offer both, because we think the two are connected. The less excess stuff we own, the more we have to give to those who truly need it. It’s not at all a profound statement – it’s a rather obvious one, but it is too often the tiny voice that is drowned out by the heavily funded yelling of corrupt corporations via mass advertising. I wrote about that at length in an older post, but the focus of this one is on our 2009 celebration.

This year, we hit eight big retail stores in Des Moines, distributing over 400 flyers, including coupons which read, “100% off things you don’t need or want,” and “50% off more space in your home!” The backside of every flyer included alternative gift ideas and web site addresses for places to help out those in desperate need. We were received generally quite well by those to whom we handed them, with one lady responding, “You know, I really do have too much stuff.” Another person actually gave us a cash donation, even though we weren’t asking for money! Some were a bit confused about the coupons with one lady asking me, “Excuse me, but what store is this for?” “It’s valid everywhere in the whole mall,” I responded.

Of course, the staff of the various retailers we visited (Wal-mart, Target, K-mart, Kohl’s, Best Buy, etc.) were not exactly thrilled with the suggestions we were making, usually picking up on what we were doing after awhile and asking us to leave. We always tried to make a prompt exit when asked to do so, though the police were phoned in on at least one occasion.

Wesley brought balloons for the kids, who were generally excited to see him and happy to have a helium-filled bauble to carry around for the day. Overall, I mark it down as a huge success, and I look forward to future celebrations!

We kicked off our second annual promotion of alternative gifts for the poor at Target and Wal-mart.

It was wretchedly cold outside in those sleeveless tunics.

Target customers were generally pleasant and encouraging, though the management was not.

Bri kindly pointed out that the actor who played the Tin Man in “The Wizard of Oz” got poisoned by the stuff he put on his face.

Tracy made a fantastic elf, even without the tunic, and she was remarkably warmer as a bonus.

In the belly of the beast.

Everyone looks a smidge uncertain as we travel down to the ninth circle of hell.

Wesley handed balloons out to any children who wanted them.

Wesley greets Black Friday shoppers with balloons and information on gifts for the poor.

Some shoppers were not too fond of our elf-suits and gifts-for-impoverished-children-promoting flyers. Our use of long, hyphenated words didn’t help us much either. (That is a shredded flyer in my hands.)

Some shoppers were extremely receptive, donating money (not asked for), offering hugs, and kind remarks.

This guy referred to me as the Jolly Green Giant.

More balloon giving.

Elves of all sizes played a role on Buy Nothing Day.

The group enters another Black Friday sales frenzy.

Peter Pan and Tinkerhell move across the K-Mart lawn.

The Ames Tribune reports on a recent Youth & Shelter Services event which featured Danny and a number of other people doing great work to help homeless youth. Dr. Tracy McIntire received special recognition for her work:

“Since coming to our community, she’s made a significant impact on the lives of many individuals,” Lester said. “Her professional commitment for testing and treating sexually transmitted diseases and preventing teen pregnancies deserves recognition,” Lester said. “It’s because of medical professionals such as Dr. McIntire that the Teen Clinic is making a positive difference in improving the health of Boone County teens.”

The full article can be found at the Ames Tribune site.

Photo courtesy of the Ames Tribune.

“These are brothers and sisters, nieces, nephews and grandchildren who have stories…” The Times-Republican reported on Danny’s recent Youth & Shelter Services speaking event recently. Head over here to read the full article, or just stare at the photo below for the next hour. Either way, something incredible will happen, I assure you.

Photo courtesy of the Times-Republican.

Greetings, all!

We are now just a few books away from selling our first 1,000 copies of From a Growing Community, Iowa’s Homeless Youth in just the first five months of its release. Your response has been quite impressive, and this book certainly could not have done so well without your support of our efforts throughout. So first, thank you for that. We’re about to hit a milestone!

Now, however, we are wrestling with this question: shall we print another thousand books? While it might seem from the outset that the answer is “yes”, it is not quite so clear to us. Let us briefly explain why.

Selling the first 1,000 books has required us to treat the book as a full-time job, racking up nearly 2,800 volunteer hours. While this has been awesome for the shelters and homeless youth, it has become exhausting for the both of us, as neither of us have taken a penny of pay from the books.This, obviously, has been by choice, because we want to give more money to the shelters, to benefit the at-risk youth they loyally serve.

It was clear to us from the beginning that we would not be able to continuously live in this way because – unfortunately – we have to make some money to live. Thus, we are slowly working our way back into part time jobs to support ourselves, which means our attention for the book is being focused elsewhere.

As only a few copies of the first print sit in our possession, we are faced with a financial dilemma. We have a limited amount of money in our account, which leaves us with an “either or” decision: Either we spend the vast majority of it on a second print of books, or we give it all to the shelters now and close this project where it is. Sadly, we do not have enough money to both print more books and donate to the shelters, as our expenses were higher than we initially thought they would be.*

So we have started to ask ourselves: can we print a second round of this book? If so, how can we gain this energy from our community and how can it help this book become more sustainable than it currently is?

As we ask these questions, we are remembering that the success of this project has been greatly in part due to its grass roots foundation, and word about the book and about what is being done in our local shelters only spreads through all of our efforts.

So, we are calling for your input and help once again. Books are currently in books stores and coffee shops around Des Moines. Would you direct others who might be interested in this book to these stores? Books are also for sale on our website,www.SowSomethingMeaningful.com. But this is our most important proposition for you: if we can get 300 orders online by the new year, we will have $6,000, which is enough to print the next round of books!

If you want this project to continue, buy up some copies for Christmas presents! But, if we can’t get those 300 orders, don’t worry! We think this project has all been very worthwhile even if it stops at 1,000 books. Both awareness and funds have been raised thanks in great part to you, and we definitely appreciate it.

So we leave you with this: should we print a second round?

Sincere thanks,
Justin Norman and Danny Heggen

* Obviously, 1,000 books x $20 is $20,000. But when you factor in a couple hundred discounted pre-orders, promotional copies given away, poster printing costs, and checks from Borders that we have yet to receive, this is where our bank account lies. Though we have said in the past that we make 50 cents per copy, none of that has been withdrawn.

Yet another article has been written about the book, this one by The Iowa City Press-Citizen. The article begins like this: “When Danny Heggen met Steph in a homeless shelter in Ames, she seemed like any other happy teenager — joking, playful and carefree. “Then you read a letter from her, and it’s, ‘How can this be, how can a 15-year-old girl go through this much and be where she is now?’” Heggen said.”

Click here to read the full article, and smack the “Recommended” button at the top of their site if you like it!

In this December’s Via Pacis, I wrote a followup article to the one I penned about homeless youth a couple of months ago. This article has a different focus, but the concern for the poor remains this same. While my last article focused on the positives of identifying with the poor, this article takes a look at some of the negatives of excess during the holiday season. The full text of the article is reprinted below.

It’s that time of year again – the time when our ears begin to flood with cliché reminders about the “real meaning” of Christmas.  “Jesus is the reason for the season,” countless churches will proclaim in what appears to be an attempt to trigger a different approach to Christmas.

About five years ago, these sorts of slogans became particularly bothersome to me, because despite Advent traditions at church, or scripture readings with my family, Christmas looked pretty much the same in the end.  Since the days when I was a slobbering tyke I was routinely told, “Christmas is not about gifts,” yet there was always a hefty pile of shiny stuff for me to consume under the elaborately decorated tree.

As I grew older, my frostbitten mind sought for some way to bridge the gap between the birth of the impoverished Christ and my family’s lights-clad, sparkling suburban home.  Yet I felt odd for even thinking about this when those around me seemed to accept this strange pairing without question as if the connection was obvious: God gave us Christ, so I should buy my family gifts, right?

As I parked in a lot dotted with Lexuses and Hummers for a Christmas church service, that once-convincing premise fell apart in more obvious ways than before.  Inside, tens of thousands of dollars worth of equipment worked to put on the best Christmas service in Las Vegas: dramatic lighting and giant screens projecting Christmas carol lyrics.

It wasn’t difficult to see that not only were the usual corporations capitalizing on literally everything they possibly could during the holiday season, but the church was also functioning this way, even if genuinely oblivious to it.  Christmas is the time of year when more people than usual attend church services, and what better way to reel in new customers than by attracting them with a flashy show that ostensibly has God’s stamp of approval on it?

Indeed, Christ – the gift – has ironically become a profitable commodity.  This is the “real meaning” of Christmas our local Christian bookstores successfully sell to many each year.  Why buy that new Xbox at Best Buy when you can purchase Noah’s Ark brand jewelry, Jesus-covered t-shirts, ‘Christian’ music, and even the now-jewel-encrusted instrument of torture on which Christ died right across the street at Barnes & Moses?  (Answer: the Xbox is way more fun, but you can still buy Guitar Praise for your console if you want some God-approved entertainment.)

This predatory profiting seems rather obvious to me now, but when I was younger I completely bought into it, filling my shelves with loads of ‘Christian’ rock CDs.  I think this was at least partially due to the fact that this sort of ‘Christian’ consumerism went hand in hand with a popular interpretation I was repeatedly given of Jesus’ interaction with the rich young ruler:  Jesus told him to give all of his stuff away not for the benefit of the poor, but because the rich young ruler had turned his possessions into a god.  Moral of the story:  buy as much stuff as you want, just don’t bow down and worship it.  Easy enough, I thought.  Until I figured out that buying a ton of excess stuff in and of itself is an act of worship to the god of overconsumption.

Drawing a line to denote where “enough” crosses into “excess” is tricky, but I’ve often found it useful to think about it in the same way that one might think about drawing a line between drinking alcohol safely, and becoming mind-numbingly drunk.  Pinning down the exact point someone crosses into the land of “too much” is difficult…until you see a naked guy plowing his moped into a lamp post at 60 mph.  Then it is clear: he has had too much to drink.   This is the same clarity I gained amongst all those Lexuses and Hummers at church: they have consumed too much in a world where people are starving to death.

It seemed that many, including myself, had been in the habit of subconsciously asking the question, “How much can I consume before crossing the line into excess?”  I realized this, and began to move toward asking the question, “How much can I live without so that I can give more to others?”

Thankfully, I was not alone in asking this question.  Eventually, my dad decided to alter years of Christmas tradition by opting out of the madness himself.  “From now on,” he told my brothers and I, “I don’t want you to buy me gifts for my birthday or for Christmas.  I have everything I need.”  Instead, he suggested that we give the money we would have spent on him to people who are impoverished and starving across the globe.

So we did.  Then we asked him to do the same for us.  And suddenly, the gap between the impoverished Christ and our Christmas celebration seemed to shrink a little bit.  Sure, we missed the excitement of unwrapping mysterious boxes each year, but eventually that was offset by the knowledge that someone in greater need than us was able to eat.

Last year, some friends and I decided we would share this idea of an altered Christmas with the rabid shoppers at our local malls on Black Friday – the biggest shopping day of the year.  I suppose you could say it was a protest, but it was a different kind of protest than the ones to which I’d been accustomed.  Instead of the usual justified anger, it was almost gleeful.  We dressed in Santa and elf suits and handed out “Buy Nothing Day”* flyers to people, offering them an alternative:  instead of piling up more stuff for yourself and your family, give to Action Against Hunger, and provide help to people who are starving.

Of course, I didn’t expect an immediate about-face.  I simply hoped to plant a seed that would gradually grow.  It is not easy to make such a drastic transition, as many of us have had it ingrained in us through years of repetition that buying purchased gifts is the primary way of showing love to family members at Christmas time.  Gathering around the tree creates a sense of family community that rarely comes elsewhere in the year.  But this sense of community doesn’t have to go away in an altered Christmas – we just have to shift the focus from communing around the Christmas tree to communing around those in greater need than ourselves.

This will take time.  But I’ve found a few great ways to start moving that direction.  One is by making sure that the companies I do buy from are not contributing to the misery of impoverished people.  For instance, with a bit of research I found that Coca-Cola has hired paramilitary troops to kill union workers in Colombia (amongst other atrocities), so I no longer purchase anything from that company.  A little book called The Better World Shopping Guide has been particularly helpful in sorting out purchase decisions as it gives companies a letter grade based on their treatment of humans and the environment.

Another way I have been able to shift the focus of Christmas throughout the year is by living in a house with nine other people, similar to the tenant-to-room ratio at the Catholic Worker houses.  While this is not an option for many, for those with large houses, it may be a feasible way to move in the right direction.  Through my experience at this house, I’ve discovered that the less space I have, the less stuff I’m likely to buy.  The more people I have living around me, the less likely I am to think I need material goods.  The less rent I pay, the less money I have to make, the more time I have available to spend serving others at places like the Catholic Worker.

This Christmas, the Catholic Worker will serve a meal to the homeless on Christmas day, joyfully celebrating the birth of the impoverished Christ with the sharing of a meal with impoverished people.  “I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me…”

Not all of those lines we’ve heard a million times about the “real meaning” of Christmas are worthless.  Many of them have simply been misinterpreted or ignored.  Jesus truly can be the “reason for the season” if we shift our focus to Him. After all, Christ really does offer the ultimate gift – the gift to experience a transforming life lived for the transcendent good of loving God through loving our neighbors as ourselves.

* Buy Nothing Day is an international campaign initiated by Adbusters Media Foundation.

* Justin spoke at “The Economics of Christ the King” – an event featuring a screening of the film, What Would Jesus Buy? and a discussion about resisting the forces of overconsumption at First Christian Church, November 22^nd, 6:00pm.  This event was sponsored by Christ Community Church and Two Rivers Church, partnering with The Best Place Ever, who donated the film.

Check out this article for a new book review, and have a happy Thanksgiving everyone! Here’s an excerpt from the beginning: “Nine lives, each unique. They are from isolated rural towns and thriving inner cities; some lived with two parents, some have only known foster parents, and some were single parents themselves, before they were of legal age. Some have suffered unthinkable abuse, while others only watched episodes of family violence as regular as the evening news. They have been straight-A students, drug addicts, thieves and scared little girls.
Nine stories – each unique. What brought them together are the commonalities they share: they are all Iowa’s children, and they have all been homeless, or nearly so, for much of their young lives. “

Article by Lori Linder.

Last week, Danny and I were interviewed on WHO 1040 about homeless youth, and what other people can do to help as the holiday season draws near. Have a listen below, while also noting our cheese-tastic new press photo (it’s for the kids!).

Danny Heggen and Justin Norman interviewed by Steve Deace.