HOUSE NEWS: Modern Day Slavery Museum, Roundtable on Suicide, Upcoming Kairos Retreat

CIW friends during their last visit

For more information on what’s happening at the Green House, please click here.

We have a full schedule this week! Highlights include the a visit from the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, and our monthly Roundtable. It’s also time to register for Kairos, a day of reflection for students and young adults which will be held here at the house on April 2.

THE CIW’S FLORIDA MODERN DAY SLAVERY MUSEUM is coming through town on March 17th and 18th. It’s housed in a cargo truck outfitted as a replica of trucks used in recent slavery operations, accompanied by displays on the history and evolution of slavery in Florida. Focusing on the phenomenon of modern-day slavery – its roots, the reasons it persists, and its solutions. The exhibits were developed in consultation with workers who have escaped from forced labor operations as well as leading academic authorities on slavery and labor history in Florida. Some of the CIW members accompanying the museum will be staying at the house. We’re not sure what their commitments are for meals at this point, but we’re hoping to be able to share some with them. Let us know if you’re interested in helping out here – or eating with us.

The museum is free and will be on exhibit at the Plaza of the Americas (UF campus) from 0am to 4:30 pm on Wednesday, March 17 and from 9am to 4:30 pm on Thursday, march 18.

The museum will also be at First Assembly of God (2025 NW 39th Ave) rom 5:30pm to 9pm on Wednesday the 17th, and at the Mennonite Meeting House (1236 NW 18th Avenue) from 5:30pm to 9pm on Thursday the 18th.

ROUND TABLE: Thursday, 6-7:30 – “SUICIDE: Dispelling the Myths and Activating Compassion”, – see this week for more info.

REGISTER FOR THE UPCOMING KAIROS RETREAT, April 3 9:30 – 4:30 pm at the Green House. For more info, click here.

WAYS TO HELP THIS WEEK:

• Help prepare, serve, and/or clean up at the Cafe (Wed), Breakfast Brigade (Fri) or Coffee Houses (Tues and Thurs) – see “this week” for schedule.
• Bake a healthy casserole or quiche (or homemade pastry) for the coffee houses or fresh bread for the cafe.
• Donate fair trade coffee or lightweight blankets.

Thank you for all of your support!

Kelli and John

HOUSE NEWS: Spring Break: We KNEAD you!

For more information on what’s happening this week at the Green House, please click here.

We are going to carry on much the same as usual this week despite having lost the majority of our UF volunteers. So if you’re around, come on over and get your hands dirty – or doughy.

VOLUNTEERS:  We’d love to have your help with any of this week’s projects – but we anticipate needing help especially during the Breakfast Brigade (Fri, 4am-7am) and the “cafe”  on Wednesday. Instead of our regular sit-down dinner/lunch, we’ll be handing out veggie pockets at the front door during normal cafe hours. The ceiling over the downstairs hallway is being ripped out and some ductwork repaired – and it’s going to be a mess. If you would like to help prepare the veggie pockets (10-12, and possibly beyond) or help distribute them (12-5), give us call or email and let us know when you can come over.

OTHER HELP: We normally try to keep things healthy; there’s so much unhealthy food available to impoverished people and so little good stuff.  At the coffee houses we have been serving baked potatoes – and left-over soup or salad when we have it.  I have also made scones a few times, in spite of nutrition, trying to create the coffee shop ambiance.  If anyone has a hankering to bake something, or prepare a pretty salad or simple casserole for the coffee houses, let me know. We usually have 15-20 men and women on Tuesdays and 5-10 women on Thursdays.

Have a wonderful Spring Break, wherever you are. The weather here is lovely!

Kelli and John

HOUSE NEWS: No mass this week, but a lot of other things

For more information on what’s happening this week at the Green House, please click here.

Unfortunately, we are discontinuing mass at the house for this semester. As much as we wanted to make it happen, John’s travel combined with all that is going on at the house has made it hard to schedule. Prayer – what a thing to drop during Lent…

There are still a lot of other projects brewing, and we would really appreciate it if you would email us if you can help with any of them this week. We particularly need extra help for the Tuesday Coffee House from 1-3. We always seem short-handed there, especially at the beginning.

The Ladies Coffee House had a few more takers after several friends made and wrapped delicious cookies that we gave out with invitations. So we’re going to keep going with it for  now. The women who come seem to really enjoy it, and so do we.

And thank you for the blanket donations! I think we’ve about wiped out everyone’s linen closet this year! With more cold days coming down the pike this week, give us a call if you would like to drop by any more.  Also a special thanks to Erika Henderson and her father Warren, orange growers at the Saturday Farmers Market. In addition to giving us great deals on delicious oranges all winter, they have regularly collected blankets and warm clothes. It’s made a difference and folks really appreciate it. When we can, we try to tell people where things came from – who made them, grew them, or donated them. It’s a pleasure to point out the connection between us, present in these concrete gifts of food and warmth.

We hope to see you this week. We also hope you are able to get out and enjoy some of the beautiful weather. We recently took a short bike ride to beautiful La Chua Trail and saw scores of alligators (over 100 between the trailhead and the lookout tower). We highly recommend it!

HOUSE NEWS: Cookbook, Greens, Blankets, and Upcoming Retreat

For more information on what’s happening this week at the Green House, please click here.

Thanks to Gloria and Dave Chynoweth for their interesting presentation at Thursday’s roundtable on the Enneagram as a spiritual tool for better understanding our fellow human beings.  Gloria and Dave have been so supportive of our work here at the house since the beginning. Hearing them talk about their desire to understand one another better as a couple (with a very long marriage) as well as other people was inspiring. We really appreciate their willingness to share what they have learned.

Gloria has made some copies of a cookbook Kelli had put together years ago with soup and bread recipes. It also includes some recipes from Bill Demers – another local baker and soup-maker.  It’s got a number of the recipes we still use today at the cafe. We’re selling them for $5 – all proceeds go to the house. Thank you, Gloria!

And thanks to all the folks who have donated greens recently - both market farmers and school gardener extraordinaire Paul Campbell.  They do require some work before we can fit them in the fridge to store them for the cafe. If you are able to stop by and cut some greens next weekend – or bring some home to cut and return to us later in the week, please let us know!

We can still use some blankets if anyone has extras left. We still have folks stop by regularly asking, and we are down to giving them blankets off the beds. If you have extras, please call to arrange a time to drop them by. It’s supposed to grow cold again this week.

Retreat Opportunity: John, in his capacity as program director with Pax Christi USA, is organizing a retreat specifically geared toward students and young adults, ages 18-35. You can find the information on the retreat by clicking here. The retreat will be held in Keystone Heights, FL (which is between Gainesville and Jacksonville) on March 5-7. It will be an opportunity for prayer and reflection, discussion and celebration, planning and organizing. If you’re interested in participating, contact John at johnnypcusa@yahoo.com.

John is out of town with work again this week, and it would be a huge help if Kelli knows who is coming on Wednesday (and can take a break from the cafe during the afternoon!). Please write and let us know if you are planning on being here to help out – Friday Breakfast Brigade too.

Thank you for all you do. We hope to see you this week!

Kelli and John

HOUSE NEWS: Roundtable on “Personality and the Enneagram,” and the rest of this week

For more information on what’s happening this week at the Green House, please click here.

Last week was busy and fun – well-attended Cafe featuring an abundance of good, local food including twice-baked potatoes, greens, and an almost entirely local salad; Tuesday’s Coffee house with tables moved around a roaring fire; a freezing, rainy Breakfast Brigade where shivering people waiting on the dwindling hope of work for the day were kind and gracious to our volunteers bearing a candle and hot breakfast.  Thursday’s “Ladies Only” Coffee House is still not well attended; we’ll give it a bit, talk to some more folks, and see if we need to change plans in March.

This Thursday is our monthly roundtable where we welcome a speaker who can get us started on discussions regarding current events and other challenging subjects.  In a world where people seem less and less able and willing to listen to one another, understanding where we are “coming from” seems a particularly useful skill. Gloria and Dave Chynoweth learned about the enneagram from Fr. Richard Rohr and will be sharing some of their insights on Thursday between 6 and 7:30 over dinner. Please bring something to share if you can.  But if not, come anyway.

Have a good week. Hope to see you!

Kelli and John

HOUSE NEWS: Coffee, greens, and garden dreams – and a bit of Obama

For more information on what’s happening this week at the Green House, please click here.

Thanks so much for helping last week with the delicious soups, fresh bread, and presence at the house! Everything went just right – even to the very last bowl of soup served at the close of the cafe.  We’re in a similar bind this week with John gone and Kelli here (except Kelli knows how to cook…), so please write and let us know if you can help and when so we can be sure we’re covered!

We have had so many greens donated from local farmers! Last week’s abundance combined with that of this week will result in a departure from our usual soup. This week it’s “greens and beans” and baked sweet potatoes. It’s a healthy,  hardy meal that our own family loves. If you are interested in trying it out for yours, here’s the recipe we’ll be using (x 50!).

February is the time of year, here in Gainesville, to start dreaming of spring gardening. After losing the water at our wonderful empty-lot garden last summer we had to adjust our dreams a bit.  We decided to try to grow as much as we can with what we’ve got – a small postage-stamp front yard with wonderful sun almost all day long.  We’re going to experiment with some self-watering pots and maybe window boxes to take advantage of all our assets. HOWEVER, we have bigger dreams brewing that are in the approval process (city-owned land). Pray for us; it could be WONDERFUL!

Also, we just received our copy of the Catholic Agitator, published by the Los Angeles Catholic Worker.  Many of you know how much we admire them and that we have modeled some of what we do here after Hennacy House. In this month’s edition, Jeff Dietrich, long-term LACW community member, writes a front-page theological reflection on the Obama presidency. So many of us wrestle with  the gap between our values, hopes, and ideals contrasted with political “reality.” Jeff’s article helps to put it into a broader and biblical perspective.  The Moral Captivity of Obama is an interesting read.

Oh, and we could use coffee donations – fair trade preferably!

Thank you – and hope to see you this week!

Kelli and John

HOUSE NEWS: Photos from the week that was

Click on any photos to see more from this past week. Thanks for all the help everyone!

A tight fit on the way to Breakfast Brigade stops

Doing dishes at Dorothy's Cafe

Alexandria knitting, Maegan during down-time tea at Brigade

HOUSE NEWS: Boy, do we need some help this week!

Dear friends,

John is at the house by himself this week so scheduling volunteers ahead of time is more important than ever! Please let us know if you are coming to help so we can make sure we’re covered at the right times! In addition to the projects and timeslots listed on “this week” there are also some special volunteer opportunities this week:

CUTTING GREENS: A lot of collard greens were donated this week and we need help processing them so they won’t go to waste. Tuesday during the coffee house would be an ideal time, from 1pm to 3pm. Also, if anyone is willing to help cook these, we can freeze them for later use.

LOOKING FOR SOME SOUP: Kelli is visiting her parents this week (her father is not well) and will not be cooking the soup. We usually cook up about eight gallons. If you are willing to prepare a gallon or so of soup, please let us know. We can provide a very simple (and tasty) recipe for lentil soup or you can cook up a batch of your own favorite soup. Please let us know as soon as possible if you can help out in this way.

BAKING BREAD: We will also need bread for the cafe. John can cook up a batch of 12, but if someone is willing to bake six-eight additional loaves at home, it would be a huge help!

Last week was a hectic, but exciting week. Michael Stoops from the National Coalition for the Homeless stayed with us during the early part of the week, followed by a wonderful group of young people from the Trail of Dreams. We also had a full house at the Cafe. The coffee house on Tuesday and Thursday is still a work in progress while we wait and see if this is something folks want. Meanwhile, the smaller numbers at those have afforded us the opportunity to sit down and enjoy a cup of coffee with people as they come, which has been very nice.

Email us at gvillecw@yahoo.com to let us know if you can help out this week!

Have a great week. We hope to see you!

~ Kelli and John

HOUSE NEWS: Inspiration… and Help!

LAST WEEK’S ROUNDTABLE: Lucy Ngatia’s talk on climate change mitigation in Kenya was so inspiring.  A small group of Kenyan women, noting changes in their community – fewer zebras  and other wildlife,  a shrinking river,  a disappearing snowcap on the mountain – decided to take action.  An important point that Lucy made was that it was in meeting and discussing that the women became inspired:  first that their observations were true – that each realized she was not the only one who hadn’t seen a zebra recently; but also that it was their responsibility to do something, and that together they could make a difference.  Even though “third world” countries do much less damage to the environment than the highly industrialized ones do, there is an impact – and these women refuse to shift the blame or wait for change. They are now growing trees in family nurseries and planting them to replace the ones used up for firewood. They are building cow sheds and learning to build inexpensive biodigesters (thank you, Dave Chynoweth!) to transform dung into energy with which to replace the wood fuel. Why the women? Because they care for the children – not only their own, but those “downstream” where water is becoming more scarce.  Listening to Lucy, I wanted to help them, but I also wanted to think about how the changes these women are making in their daily lives translate into things we might be doing here based on what we, here in Gainesville, see.  Such a “Catholic Worker Way” of seeing things – asking what one can do right now to in this particular situation to alleviate suffering, not waiting for the Powers That Be to come to their senses.

HELP NEEDED: We are trying to schedule volunteers so that things will be covered adequately during the coffee houses, Dorothy’s Cafe, and the Breakfast Brigade. We are still regularly running short of help during the Coffee House and the Cafe. If you can help, please email or call ahead so we’ll know you are coming so we can send out a request for more help if it’s needed; times and duties are listed here. If you can commit to a regular volunteer time each week, let us know that too.

COFFEE HOUSE CHANGE: Times are still the same, and good coffee and tea are still flowing. But we would like to try out an all-women’s coffee shop on Thursday. So, women volunteers, this would be a great time to volunteer.

Thanks for all you do to keep the “Green House” going. We hope to see you this week.

HOUSE NEWS: Climate Change Mitigation and Volunteer Help

For a complete schedule for This Week, click here.

At our first roundtable of the semester this Thursday,  we’re excited to have Lucy Ngapia, a UF doctoral student from Kenya, discuss her work with Kenyan women to mitigate climate change.  Please bring a dish to share if you can and join us from 6-7:30 for an interesting discussion with Lucy.

Also, we especially need help at Dorothy’s Cafe on Wednesday! Please see “this week” for timeslots and a description of work to be done.  Let us know if you can help; we’re trying to schedule folks ahead so we’ll have even coverage throughout the day. You can sign up for any time period that fits your schedule -from one hour to all day long.

Other volunteer opps this week include Breakfast Brigade on Friday and the new Coffee House on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons. Again, check “this week” for details.

Thanks for all you do help the work of the house go on. So many people came to get blankets, socks, and warm clothes over the last couple weeks, and it was so good to have them!  We’re not sure who brought the hand-crocheted hats (and scarf), but a big thank you for the time you put in to making these beautiful, much-needed items. And thanks, too, for the coffee, tea, and coffee makers.  It is heartening for everyone involved to be able to be able to share what we have with neighbors who need it, and it was particularly sweet to see eyes light up at the bounty shared over the cold snap.