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November 30, 2011

Meet Lauren Pilgrim

Filed under: Volunteer Opportunity, health care — Tags: , , , , , , , — admin @ 10:41 am

Raised in small-town Pennsylvania nutritionist and personal chef Lauren Pilgrim has lived in Brooklyn for fourteen years, and is the latest addition to Brooklyn Jubilee’s health care ministry. Lauren’s expertise, insights and recipes will be key to our holistic approach to wellness, especially as we try to tackle the diet-related disorders such as high blood pressure and diabetes are endemic in low-income areas of Brooklyn.

Initially drafted to work on healthy versions of traditional West Indian recipes to use in our Flatbush ministry, Lauren’s enthusiasm for food is always part of her conversation;  “I’ve loved cooking since I was very young, but didn’t decide to pursue food as a career until I was 30.  Although I grew up eating healthy — my parents were careful about that kind of thing, we didn’t eat a lot of processed food and weren’t allowed sodas —it wasn’t very good food. It was good for me, but not particularly well prepared or enjoyable to eat.”

Lauren pursued a culinary qualification at The Natural Gourmet Institute (NGI), because the school has the only program in New York focused on health in relation to cooking. Its emphasis is on primarily organic, local, sustainable food.

Dealing with her own health issues at the time, Lauren says “I chose NGI because I was always in the arduous process of doing elimination diets and struggling with my health. I wanted to be able to eat, and really enjoy what I was cooking, rather than going to a traditional cooking school where I would have felt like I was eating foods that make me unwell.”

Lauren is very calm and measured in conversation, so her assertion that she “can be pretty preachy about food” has to be taken with a pinch of salt. A tiny pinch, probably, given the concerns about salt and high blood pressure. “I’m pretty strict with what I eat but I feel a million times better than before I changed my diet.” She cites improvements in her physical health, but also in her mood and outlook. She’s firmly convinced that good eating is part of a holistic approach to health and wellness. “It’s really rewarding to see people benefit from dietary changes and from eating my food! And of course, eating well can clearly be preventative medicine, especially in diabetes, high blood pressure and obesity.” Leaning on her culinary training, Lauren has adapting West Indian recipes, pouring through cookbooks and, “figuring out what I can do to make the dish healthier without sacrificing anything delicious, and while keeping it as authentic as possible.”

In mid-December she will lead our new West Indian Cooking Club in Flatbush — a chance for community members and food professionals to share their knowledge, cook together and produce healthier versions of traditional recipes. The group will then share the recipes with soup kitchens, neighbors and, eventually, with clients of Brooklyn Jubilee’s healthcare ministry. Lauren will be the first member of our volunteer team to guest chef at soup kitchens, run workshops and hand out recipes designed to empower people to feed themselves well and deliciously.

“Eating well is empowering,” says Lauren, “if a person can take control of at least this one aspect of their health, it’s a huge step in the right direction.”

July 7, 2011

In The Loop: A Word From Our Director

Filed under: Biblical Foundations of the Ministry, Volunteer Opportunity — Tags: , , , , — admin @ 7:38 am

What does joy look like? I saw it last week at one of our sites in Flatbush. At most of our sites we regularly give away Bibles in English and in several other languages. It’s particularly hard to come by a Haitian Creole Bible, and even harder to find one that doesn’t cost an arm and a leg. After extensive searching online I found a company in Pennsylvania that had them in stock , at a reasonable price. Imagine how hard it is to find them if you don’t have a computer? The company shipped the Bibles to me, and I schlepped them to Flatbush.

I simply put the Bibles on the table where I sit  in the church to give out legal advice to food pantry clients. They quickly disappeared. People remembered that I have Bibles, and asked for them. They took them for themselves, for their sisters, and for their home attendants. Today I will need to bring double what I brought last time. One woman looked at her Bible last week and pointed, “For me?” she said in uncertain English. “Yes.” “For free?” she asked. “Yes,” I said. She picked it up with a smile, and turned two steps to her left to face the altar. She lifted her new Bible into the air in thanks, smiled at that altar, and gave the Bible a little shake to make sure God could see it, and her gratitude. Then she practically bounced out of the church.

Why do we give out Bibles when we’re also giving out legal advice? We want to recognize and serve the whole person. We understand that people need all kinds of encouragement ‑ legal advice is just one way to serve our neighbors. By recognizing and honoring the faith of the people we meet, we do so much more than offer them some legal advice ‑ we align ourselves with them and with the struggles and the joys of their lives. The most rewarding thing, though, about, giving away Bibles is that look of joy, that promise of hope, in the face of a stranger, who will next time call us their friend.

Sandhya Reju Boyd, Director

May 24, 2011

In the Loop: A Word From Our Director

Filed under: Volunteer Opportunity, health care — Tags: , , , , , , , — admin @ 9:18 am

Almost two years ago our board asked me to begin exploring the possibility of starting a Brooklyn Jubilee healthcare ministry. At that point, none of us understood the hurdles we’d have to jump over in order to get the new project started.

As I began to look into how Brooklyn Jubilee might launch a healthcare project, I met with a lot of discouragement.  Just about a year ago — at a time when it seemed that “you can’t do it,” and “it’s too much for you,” were all I heard — God graciously allowed me to meet John Mills while we were each attending the Christian Community Health Fellowship annual conference in Nashville, Tennessee

John is the director of Empowering Church Healthcare Outreach (ECHO), a nonprofit formed to promote church-based healthcare ministry.  ECHO’s entire mission is to support and foster efforts like ours, and to do it all without cost to our fledgling program.  They have helped us through huge challenges – guiding us through regulatory problems that would otherwise have trapped us in years and years of red tape. Mara Servaites is the ECHO consultant with whom I work most closely. She’s based in Richmond, Virginia, so we talk on the phone a handful of times each month; discussing Brooklyn Jubilee’s progress to date, and talk through planning for our next steps. Mara helps me be braver than I would be on my own. With her encouragement I face down the negativity and push forward to fulfilling our vision of reaching our communities with free, quality healthcare services. ECHO has been a sign to me of God’s blessing upon us, and a great encouragement to me throughout this past year. In celebration of our one year ECHO anniversary, to all the ECHO family, I say “thank you!” I can’t wait to see what God will do in the year ahead!

Sandhya Reju Boyd, Director

April 27, 2010

Gratefully Ousted

Filed under: Park Slope, Volunteer Opportunity — admin @ 7:31 am

Gratefully ousted.

There’s really no other way to describe it. After nearly four years of visiting the Helping Hands food pantry every month, to answer questions about food stamps, housing and anything else under the sun we might be asked, I’ve been ousted by two Brooklyn Jubilee volunteers.

Last month, when I appeared at the pantry to serve with the Brooklyn Jubilee volunteers, both Marcey and Katie asked me, “Why are you here?”

I was not off-put by their declaration of my dispensability. I was thrilled! What followed was a thoughtful, and exciting discussion about their commitment to serve the patrons of the Helping Hands food pantry every month, and to work closely with me and Jackie (our Volunteer Coordinator) as they become Site Leaders in Park Slope.

The program model has always envisioned committed volunteers taking over leadership of established sites where we serve, freeing program staff for the challenging work of breaking new ground elsewhere in Brooklyn.  And yet, it is understandably very difficult for most people to make the time to volunteer in any capacity, let alone to make the profound commitment to lead some portion of any ministry on a volunteer basis. What a great joy it is to see their faithfulness to serve their neighbors! And what a blessing to me to have a Saturday off!

Please be praying for Marcey and Katie as they  weave this new commitment into the fabric of their very full lives and busy legal careers, for their sustained joy and enthusiasm in this ministry.

~Sandhya

August 13, 2009

Habitat for Humanity: Where are the buyers?

Filed under: Affordable Housing, Habitat for Humanity, Volunteer Opportunity — brooklynjubilee @ 2:09 pm

Park Slope jpeg-1086Brooklyn Jubilee’s newest partnership has just begun to sprout. We are now an affiliate of Habitat for Humanity in New York City.

Habitat for Humanity has built several affordable housing developments in NYC. These buildings present the opportunity of a life time that many of us only dream about – homeownership in NYC. Best of all, they present that opportunity to families who might otherwise never be able to buy because of their income.

In fact, although they have recently built a beautiful, LEED-certified condo complex in East New York, Habitat cannot find enough qualified applicants to purchase these apartments. Stop and digest that for a moment. In New York City, where 70% of the residents are tenants, many of whom dream of homeownership but can’t pull together a 20-30% down payment, these gorgeous homes are sitting vacant. Now consider that the down payment on the Habitat homes is only ONE PERCENT, and the fixed-rate 30-year mortgage is only TWO PERCENT. So why do these condos sit empty?

Not everyone qualifies for the program. The family income must be within their guidelines. The applicant must have a good credit score, at least 620 or up. They must be willing to put in hundreds of hours of “sweat equity,” meaning actual physical labor in the construction of other homes, before they can purchase their own.  

So, Habitat can’t actually find enough qualified applicants to purchase the homes. Sometimes a good candidate is zooming along in the process, and they get caught in a credit scam, and their credit score goes bust. Sometimes people are working their way towards homeownership, and they lose their job and thus fall out side the income guidelines.

Here’s where we can help. Habitat wants to goes into the community to talk to people about their homeownership program, and encourage folks who might qualify to apply. And to foster a tenant population with higher credit scores, Habitat lectures in the community about consumer scams and other consumer traps that can ultimately ruin your credit score. They make these presentations when the can, but are always looking for more opportunities to speak to an audience. They don’t have enough resources to promote these events themselves to generate a good crowd, and many of the organization that might want to sponsor it won’t have those resources either. 

Could you be the answer? Could you help Habitat? It’s not as complicated as it might seem. I’m pretty confident we could find the venues for at least five presentations right away, and schedule them.  But Brooklyn Jubilee doesn’t have the staff to do extensive outreach for these events. It takes time, and with limited staff, we couldn’t do an effective job on our own. Volunteers could help  out by spending time on-line finding names of churches, businesses, etc. that might promote a Habitat lecture. Other volunteers could help us mail letters to those groups, or give them a call, or take them a flier about the event. 

No, it’s not as sexy as wielding a hammer for them. But it’s real help. Simple help. Help that Habitat wants and needs to effectively promote low-income home ownership.  Do you share that vision? Can you get involved?