Celebrate Life and Health!

Below is a link to a slideshow of images from the Celebrate Life and Health Event in Dayton, a free community health fair in which the Mobile Express team participated. If you look closely, you can see a picture of our own Brent Sigley, regional coordinator extraordinaire, signing in at the event.

http://mediamoments1.photoshelter.com/gallery-slideshow/G0000BJX4fE4l4c8/?start=

Record Setting Week

Erin and I just came off a week in which we completed over 50 applications for Ohioans. And these weren't a bunch of quickies like voter registration and Golden Buckeye cards*. We're talking HEAP, food assistance, Medicare premium assistance, and Medicaid. Big, long applications.

Wednesday brought us to Safe Surrender in Cleveland. Safe Surrender is an event held in cities throughout the country where people with misdemeanors and non-violent felonies can appear and have their outstanding warrants taken care of. It lifts a weight off of their shoulders and it makes the authorities happy since it saves them time. These Ohioans are people who are unlikely to go to Jobs and Family Services to apply for benefits because of those warrants. Once those warrants were taken care of, Erin and I wanted to be there to help them out immediately.

We were told to expect 60-200 people. We got over 800. Enough to fill a church auditorium. With an unexpectedly large crowd, it was harder to get people to come into our Mobile. People were waiting hours to get these warrants taken care of and people seemed pretty pooped. Of course, with 800 people, it's inevitable that a few people would want to stop and see what we were all about. We finished about 15 applications that day.

Now, Safe Surrender was only supposed to get busier. It was actually a four day event and we could only make it to Day 1. We were previously booked for a two day foreclosure prevention event in Dayton. You may remember that we've observed some people in pretty dire need over in Montgomery County. No income, no job, no food stamps. That's not the way it ought to be and I've been primed to go back and see if there was more of the same.

There was.

Over the next two days, we saw dozens and dozens of people who were eligible for benefits. The client that stuck in my mind was an elderly woman living with her disabled son on less than $750 a month in Social Security. That is unacceptable. We found at least 25 other people in similar situations.

Erin and I, with assists from Central Ohio Regional Coordinator Zach Reat and VISTA Sarah Olinger, completed 38 applications over those two days. That is a lot. Over 50 over three days, and, wow. I told the organizers of the event that with that many applications, the county will take notice.

We can't reasonably expect to complete 50 applications a week in perpetuity, but it's good to know that if there's a need, that we can step up and finish a staggering amount of applications in a short time. We met the challenge. It's a good feeling.

*I don't mean to downplay Golden Buckeye cards or voter registration. It's just that those applications take only a few minutes. And they don't require a lot of thinking. "Are you 60 years old? Great!" "Are you registered to vote at your new address? Great!"

Dollar Day Sale in Dayton

On Labor Day weekend, Erin and I made it to Dayton for a rummage sale sponsored by the St. Deliverance Church of God in Christ. See! Here we are!

Proof!

If you can't tell, that picture was taken from the wrong side of the tracks.

wocka, wocka, wocka

So, ok, I know that you aren't seeing a lot of people in that first picture. You might be thinking, "Boy, must have been a pretty slow event." And, you, Straw Man Reader, would be totally wrong. This event was one of the busiest we've ever been a part of.

Attendance wasn't high, but every single person that came out to buy clothes stopped by the van. All of them. Our contact, the wonderful Laura Myrick, went as far as to call people in the community that needed help and urged them to pay us a visit. And they came out.

Unfortunately, there appear to be some serious holes in the safety net in Dayton. We had a handful of clients with no income who still hadn't signed up for food assistance. They didn't really know how or were resigned to siphoning off of their savings accounts.

Erin and I wouldn't have any of that. We helped the good residents of Dayton fill out 25 different applications. Twenty-five! Between the two of us! You're welcome, Dayton grocers (food assistance), Dayton politicians (voter registration), and Dayton employers (senior employment program)!

And Erin was especially good to the local economy. It was unexpectedly brisk and Erin was wearing summer clothes. Since we were at a rummage sale, she upgraded to jeans.

stimulus!

Hello From Montgomery County

Dayton Urban Ministries has invited us to their fine city to help people looking for foreclosure help apply for different benefits. I'm writing this on my lunch break and already the event has been a smashing success. We've already helped clients apply for an array of benefits including food assistance, cash assistance, and even senior employment.

A lot of the credit needs to go to Dayton Urban Ministries. We're working with two of their Americorps State members - Iris Gordon and Robin McElrath - who are also trained Benefit Bank counselors. They've been extremely welcoming and helpful.

We were also paid a visit by Jessica Janowiak from Solutions for Progress. "Solutions for Progress?" you ask. Yes, Solutions for Progress. They're the developers of the Ohio Benefit Bank software. This makes them a big deal. Ms. Janowiak was watching us use the software and looking to make it more user friendly. It's a testament to Jessica's company that I've been on the Mobile Express since April and there have been several changes in that time to make the Benefit Bank system faster, smoother, and easier for clients to obtain the benefits they're eligible for. To have one of their employees over my shoulder knowing that it could help people across the country was truly an honor.