Generations Together: Wrapping up...

The hardest part of grant-writing for me used to be the part where you tuck the whole thing in an envelope and stick it in the mail. After that, there was nothing else you could do except wait and I don't wait very well. Actually, that wasn't the worst part. The worst part was a week later when you were rereading the grant application to keep from chewing on the leg of your own desk and you realized you'd left something out or had made a mistake. Would they reject your grant because of this one error? Would 5 months of work go down the drain because you made a small error?

Well, now that I'm in the for-profit sector, I thought all that was behind me - that is until I encountered the dreaded Small Business Administration loan. Now, don't get me wrong, SBA is a GOOD thing. They guarantee the loan and you get lower interest rates as a result. Everybody says our loan is perfect for SBA. I just hope SBA agrees.

I guess I don't like "putting it all out there" for people to judge and accept or reject. It's why I never completed the great American novel I guess (though I have parts of several in bound vinyl notebooks buried in boxes in my closet). It may explain some of my difficulties navigating the philanthropy community!

One day I might drag one of my novels out and finish it and send it off to a publisher.

At least that's what I keep telling myself anyway.....

This is my second serious foray into the private sector. Our first Tom & Sheila owned business (also a day care center) did well for a few years and then closed. I chose the wrong place for it and didn't throw in the towel when I should have. Story of my life!

This time we developed a 192 page business plan, researched the financing, did the demographic and marketing research and generally obsessed over it. My partner in the venture is a dear friend and an experienced business woman. I am desparate not to let her down.

Meanwhile...

Generations Together has closed. In the midst of our capital campaign we suddenly found ourselves forced to compete with a 9 billion dollar disaster relief effort in the wake of hurricane's Rita and Katrina which severely drained philanthropic resources locally and nationally. Unable to raise money quickly enough, GT was forced to cease operations when the property owner sold the site to a developer. They bull-dozed everything we'd done.

I felt bad about it. We raised a lot of money and wound up losing it all. But everyone's donations were not wasted. Intergenerational day care will continue. We kept it alive for almost 3 years longer than it would have if we hadn't tried. Dozens of little old people didn't have to go to nursing homes because we were there a few years more. And finally, we have found another way to do intergenerational day care!

So what, if anything did we learn?

Lesson 1: What we learned is that sometimes it's easier to show people that a thing can be done and is worth doing than it is to talk them into helping you do it!

Lesson 2: Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him forever. (in other words, we had to learn to fish and what pond to fish in)!

With the help of an imaginative local entrepeneur, some Small Business Adminstration financing (we hope), a providential day care center coming on the market and a lot of planning and hard work, we have managed to resurrect intergenerational day care in Smith County. When God closes a door, He opens a window! Watch these pages for announcement of the opening of the new Generations Project Christian Intergenerational Day Care Center.

Till then, in the words of Douglas Addams,

"So long and thanks for all the fish!"

Closing the Doors

Dear friends and supporters:

I wanted to share with you what happened yesterday at 5:30 pm – 30 minutes before we closed our doors at Generations Together's preschool campus.

Our doorbell rang and I found standing at the door, a tall pleasant looking gentleman who introduced himself as Pastor Rudy Bond. We sat down in my office as the last minutes of the day and our hopes for keeping GT open ticked away.

We talked about many things. He listened to me describe out 2 ½ year struggle to find a home and find funding. We talked about ministries and doing the right thing because its right, not because its easy.

He encouraged me not to lose hope and added that God does things in his own way and for his own reasons. We shared experiences in working with ministries and organizations and people and I found a kindred spirit in Bishop Bond. He was a great comfort to me and as the clock struck six, Pastor Bond led several of us in a prayer for courage and guidance. As he left, he gave me his cell phone number and told me to call him when he got back on Monday or Tuesday and things had settled.

I really didn’t realize what had happened nor had it register what he’d been saying to me until this morning as I was sitting in church. I think I may have had a visitation from the very angel I’d been praying for all week and typically, I didn't recognize it. Last night I was miserable and in despair.

Today I have renewed hope. There’s no sense to it by any standard known to the sensible world, but I do have hope…

We were worried about whether or not we’d be able to get all our things out of the Cornerstone property in time. Their treasure had threatened to padlock the place on the first. Everybody’s sick. I have the flu. Paula our bookkeeper is recovering from surgery and may have pneumonia. Sherry, our child care director's father died Saturday. I didn’t think we could do it. No one from the owner group would return my calls. Dianna Wilkerson, however, called them up and by some miracle, they extended our time to get our things out by a week. So Tuesday we’ll start shutting everything down, but till then everyone can rest and recoup. That was a blessing I didn’t think we’d get. (It also buys us a little more time – but I’m not going to think about that right now…).

Till then, we’ll do a shutdown and reorganization plan. We might just be able to keep the program going for a while if we can find space somewhere. If we can figure out a way to run with a positive cash flow, we can start paying off our creditors at least. Our nursery is shutting down over the next few weeks. It’s very hard to find infant care, so everyone’s struggling and OSLC is letting our babies stay long enough to find them new day care. God bless them for that.

We might have to become Generation Alone, but that may be what we have to do for now.

Friday, I received a call from a gentleman who offered to give us $5000. I drove up to his place to get it and couldn’t find them. The company has a huge yellow sign right beside the North Loop. I’ve seen it dozens of times, but for some reason I kept driving past it without seeing it. I called them twice and passed by the place about 6 times. By the time I got there, this lovely gentleman had decided to add another $1000 to the check. Maybe God was stalling me – I don’t know. It was one of the stranger things that has happened to me this week and that's saying something.

The money, while not enough to make an offer to Cornerstone, will help us reorganize the adult program and maybe keep that going a bit longer and pay some bills we absolutely have to pay.

I have to tell you, our parents have been so supportive. I’m supposed to call about half of them this weekend if we’re able to stay open. Teachers too! Of course, we can’t (barring something really HUGE), but most have said they’ll be back if we reopen. All of my teachers will come back in a heartbeat if we call them and tell them we’re reopening.

The telling thing to me was when I went into their rooms at the end of the day on Friday. Every room was neat and clean as though it would be open again next week. I’ve seen organizations shut down and time and again I see bitter and angry staff just trash the place, carry off the equipment and basically loot the organization. There has not been a hint of that. Every one of them has been encouraging and really lifted me up when I was down. I stand in awe of them. Instead of being angry at losing their jobs, they were worrying about me. Instead of trying to get every nickel they could out of us, they came to work like it was a regular week, knowing we probably wouldn’t be able to pay them any time soon.

God works in mysterious ways, his wonders to perform. I’ll keep you posted as we discover what wonders he has for us next.

Thank you all for your prayers and for your constant support.

Tom King
www.generationstogether.com
www.charitygolftournament.net
www.twayneking.blogspot.com

Those who say it cannot be done should not interrupt the
person doing it. - Chinese proverb

A George Bailey Moment

It is Christmas and I'm having my George Bailey at the bridge moment. As most of you that read regularly know, I'm director of an intergenerational day care center called Generations Together . It's a wonderful place. We have the best teachers we've ever had, our children and seniors are happy and well-cared for. We've been asked to be a part of a new barrier-free housing initiative. A new transit initiative we were part of has kicked off and is going great guns. We just received a major pledge toward our building campaign and have hope of another large contribution in January. We have a group of investors forming to purchase the building for us that we need to move into. 

We were going to triple our child care space, quadruple our infant care space and more than double our senior program space. But we've run out of time. There will be a meeting on Saturday to decide our fate. We may very well be forced to close our doors. It will mean that many of our seniors will no longer be able to live at home, but be forced to go to nursing homes. It means that Tyler's most respected nursery program will close (we have people call us to reserve a spot when they are just thinking about becoming pregnant). It means our extensive advocacy work for seniors, people with disabilities and low income families will end. It means 20 teachers will be put out of work at Christmas. It means the 80 families on our waiting list for placement in our nursing program will not have a place to put their babies. I ask for your prayers right now that the owners of our building will give us just 60 more days to get our investor group together and to purchase the building. As someone wise told me yesterday, "....GOD is in the deal.... No one knows why it took so long to get to this place with this exact set of people involved, but it did and it’s all part of the plan." Thank you all for your support and for your prayers and good wishes.

Looking for a Christmas miracle! 

Tom