Board of The Trinity House, which is a homeless shelter for women and children.
Tri-State Homelessness Conference, whose mission is to develop strategies and implement action plans to meet the needs of the homeless population in Nebraska, Iowa and South Dakota. Bob will share The Sleep Out story to help them reach a goal of $50,000, and will visit shelters and churches.
Sleepout seeks to raise awareness of homelessness...
(Excerpts from an article published in the Sioux City Journal March 28th):
"The knees of their pants were wet and grass-stained. Their hands were becoming red and chapped from the cold. But Chris Delfs, Tim Young and Jenni Mittleider weren't about to go inside and change. They were getting ready to spend the night raising awareness of homelessness-even if the drizzle kept falling and muddying their campground.
"Awareness is the cornerstone of our conference," Wood said. "This time it's not a fundraiser, but a few of our speakers wanted to do something special," including Bob Fisher... He helped organize the first Siouxland Sleep-Out. Wood said last year about 80 people attended the all-day homelessness conference and he said he hopes to have about 100 come this year."
Bob: "The "tri-state" is Iowa, Nebraska and South Dakota. I brought my sleeping bag and a number of essentials because I had committed to sleeping out that night, along with about twenty others, in the yard of the college where the conference was being held. The mayor of Sioux City, along with three or four others who are involved in the area with homelessness, spoke briefly about their vision and what they are doing. Lyle Schwery, the homeless coordinator for Iowa and my tent mate for the night, was the keynote speaker in the morning. Lyle shared personal stories and announced the new "Homelessness in the State of Iowa" report just finished by the state. It is maybe the most detailed report I have ever seen.
I was happy to talk about the successful participation of the Wayzata community and how that kind of involvement has made such a huge difference. We were able to raise the awareness and involvement levels a few notches.