By Dave Schwab

Father Joe’s sets the stage for paying it forward

For its second annual Good Neighbor Month, Father Joe’s Villages (FJV) is leading the way in September, hosting several community-oriented events to raise awareness about homelessness. The monthlong series of activities is being sponsored by Wells Fargo Bank.

“After the success of last year’s inaugural Good Neighbor Month, we are looking forward to another great opportunity to engage San Diegans with some unique ways to learn about the broad spectrum of homelessness issues, the meaning of neighbors and how to help,” said Deacon Jim F. Vargas, president and CEO of Father Joe’s Villages.

Vargas said the idea behind Good Neighbor Month is to inspire people to “make a difference in another person’s life.”

The deacon said that can be accomplished through acts of humanism both large and small.

“It might be your next-door neighbor who’s homebound that you go out and do shopping for,” Vargas said. “A day shouldn’t go by in the life of anyone where they can’t look back on that day and say they didn’t do something for someone else. This should become a common thing: something we take to heart on a daily basis.”

September Good Neighbor events include:

• Dialogue (Sept. 3): FJV convened an expert panel to discuss the impacts of homelessness on the region. Moderated by retired KGTV anchor and “dean” of San Diego TV, Bill Griffith, this year’s event focused on the border and the impacts of drug addiction and enforcement on homelessness in the bi-national region.
• Neighborhood Cleanup (Sept. 19): FJV’s friends, partners and volunteers will lend a hand in removing trash from the streets of the East Village, especially from the streets surrounding the St. Vincent de Paul Village campus.
• Super Saturdays (every Saturday in September): FJV’s thrift stores in El Cajon, Downtown, Chula Vista and Spring Valley will offer special discounted goods, along with refreshments, treats and giveaways in an effort to encourage both shopping and donations.
• Challenge: Throughout September, a challenge is being issued for area residents to conduct a kind gesture for a neighbor in need and each participant has the chance to win a prize. FJV is asking San Diegans to commit to the good neighbor challenge through its website and share how they will do it — whether by volunteering, donating clothes and goods, or any number of other acts. Many of their stories will be shared via social media throughout the month.

Good Neighbor Month is part of a broader promotional strategy being used by FJV, San Diego’s largest homeless services provider, in the fight to end homelessness.

On Aug. 24, to dramatize the magnitude of the plight of the San Diego region’s growing homeless population — which grew about 3 percent last year according to the annual count by the Regional Task Force On The Homeless — FJV volunteers set up a temporary “sea of shoes” on 16th Street at Newton Avenue, Downtown.

Pointing out that 17,400 is “a lot of shoes,” Vargas noted that the act graphically illustrates  “the immensity of the crisis we have in San Diego County.”

“Those 8,700 pairs of shoes represent men, women and children who are homeless,” he said. “Only about half of those people are housed in some way. The rest are on the street. That’s a travesty.”

Vargas said Good Neighbor Month fits nicely with new, more aggressive strategies FJV is utilizing to get the message out to the public that the homeless need their help.

Earlier this year, FJV unveiled a new brand identity, including a new logo and website. Now, it’s time, said Vargas, for FJV to take its message of humanism to the next level.

“We’re going to have TV commercials that are a call to action, where we’re asking people to band together as a community to end this crisis [homelessness],” Vargas said. “It’s going to take a concerted effort from the entire community.”

Vargas said the new promotional TV spots will carry tag lines such as “Be like Father Joe” and “You can make a difference.”

“Hopefully, we can build on this,” Vargas said. “The key is to build awareness and call people to action asking them to get involved — volunteer, make monetary or other donations such as furniture, cars or items for our thrift shops.”

Father Joe’s Villages has been empowering people to achieve self-sufficiency for 65 years. The organization, which started as a small chapel serving San Diego’s impoverished, has grown into a cutting-edge, region-wide provider of effective housing programs and services.

Father Joe’s prepares up to 3,000 meals and works with more than 1,500 individuals every day — from infants and adolescents to adults and seniors.  FJV offers solutions to address the complex needs of the homeless, regardless of age, race, culture or beliefs.

The organization’s primary goal is to transform lives and end the cycle of homelessness. To this end, they provide housing, healthcare, food, clothing, education, job training and child development in an internationally modeled “one-stop-shop” approach.

FJV’s mission is made possible only through the efforts of compassionate staff, dedicated volunteers, and generous public and private donors.

For more information about the activities planned for Good Neighbor Month, visit neighbor.org.

—Dave Schwab came to San Diego 30 years ago with a journalism degree from Michigan State University and has worked and freelanced for numerous dailies, weeklies and other regional publications. He can be reached at [email protected].