I’m sitting in a conference room that has no windows in it. That’s a shame because I’m at the beach, it will be 81 degrees today and the winds are calm. A perfect beach day! I’ll only catch glimpses of it when we take breaks from the grants we are arguing for and against. But the trip is paid for and I’m with this really cool collection of people and we’ll have fun and learn a lot.
In 1999 I drove to Charleston, South Carolina with Ben Barnes and Mary Ann Beil so that we could meet Ted Hardgrove. Ted was the Deputy Director of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Local Funding Partners Program. They give away money to health care programs that they consider groundbreaking.
From New Jersey Ted is a soft spoken, former minister, who ran his own non-profit for a while. We immediately hit it off and I explained to him that we were doing shelter based health clinics for homeless people. Then we shared the dream for a full scale clinic that would be completely integrated with housing, employment, and other services. Ted was intrigued.
We were invited to submit a grant and we did. I wrote it. And we almost got funded but didn’t. Ted called to explain that all five letters of support were identical though they were all signed by different people and on different stationary.
“Damn,” I said. Of course they’re identical! I wrote them and then got people to sign them.
Ted chuckled and invited us to submit again the following year. We did, this time with five support letters that didn’t look anything like the other, and we received $500,000 to establish the J. C. Lewis Health Center.
The following year the Foundation gave me a “Community Health Leader” award which was $100,000.
The Foundation’s been very good to Union Mission and to me.
In 2002 they asked me to serve on one of their National Advisory Committee and become one of the people who decides who gets money and who doesn’t. It’s been quite the learning experience. After today, we will go visit the places that we’ve read about and this summer money will flow to the winners and the losers will reconsider their applications.
Eight or ten times a year I am in a room like this in some city across the country. Today it is Fort Lauderdale. In a few weeks it will likely be San Francisco I learned last night. In between are Atlanta and Houston.
Last night we all had dinner together beside the ocean at an outdoor bar. We’ve gotten to know and like one another so we laughed and toasted in group speak or we broke off into soft quiet conversations.
A full moon rose over the ocean. As it climbed it cast a white trail on the water. While everyone else continued talking and enjoying themselves, my mind followed the trail to the moon and I grew quiet and introspective. My eyes remained focused on the spectacular moonrise.
And I thanked God for allowing this crazy life that I live. And I toasted the moon and I made a promise to dance under it soon in celebration of the joy that is in my life.
