VeNews Spring 2004

Welcome to VeNews, the email newsletter for Vesper Society friends!

Vesper Society promotes social justice locally and globally by addressing critical social issues including the provision of health services for the underserved.

In this issue …

Vesper Society President meets with Bush’s Director of Faith-Based Initiatives in Washington, D.C.

Vesper Society President, Mary Baich, met with Robert J. Polito, Director of the Center for Faith-Based and Community Initiatives on Tuesday, May 4, 2004, in the nation’s Capitol. The purpose of the visit was to express our thanks for Vesper’s receipt of federal funding from the Compassion Capital Fund program and to raise awareness of the project Vesper initiated that benefited from the funding. This project, the Community Healing Network (CHN) has two components:  1) The Adolescent Health Consortium, works with two clinics in Hayward. The Tiburcio Vasquez Health Center provides direct counseling and therapy services to the students and families at the Hayward Community School. The Silva Clinic provides direct health screening, treatment, and referral services to the same population. 2) The CHN – Interfaith Network works to enhance and expand the capacity of faith and community based agencies to engage in efforts to improve individual, family and community health in the Hayward area.

Mr. Polito and Mrs. Baich also discussed the potential of linking Vesper Society’s current involvement in the African Religious Health Assets Program (ARHAP) with the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). They engaged in preliminary discussions about how those two large scale efforts could work together. ARHAP proposes to finalize and deploy a suite of tools to identify, assess, and map religious health assets in twelve focus countries in Africa and to make this new body of information accessible to leaders, decision-makers, and program managers at all levels.  This knowledge is urgently needed to mobilize current capacities, align resources, such as those of PEPFAR, fill critical gaps, and target interventions. ARHAP partners include Drs. Gary Gunderson and Deborah McFarland of Emory University, Debbie Jones of the Centers for Disease Control, Dr. James Cochrane of the University of Cape Town, South Africa, Dr. Tor Haugstad of Norway, Mary Baich of Vesper Society, and many others. There may be an opportunity to link the work of AHRAP with the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR).

In addition, Mrs. Baich attended a training conference for intermediary funding organizations who receive Compassion Capital Funds. Vesper Society is in its second year of receiving funds for use with faith-based charities in the Hayward area, as noted above. The training, held in Washington, D.C., was highly beneficial in our work with federal funds.

One week prior to the D.C. visit, Mrs. Baich attended a meeting in Cambridge, Massachusetts, at the Hauser Center for Nonprofits at Harvard University along with the researchers, Drs. Gunderson, McFarland, and Cochrane. They met with Brent Coffin and L. David Brown of the Hauser Center. The purpose of the meeting was to learn about the theory and practice of a leadership model developed by the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard called the “Executive Seminar.”  It is an executive leadership model that has been effective in cross-institutional settings and in work with nonprofits.  It may be a model for leadership development in Africa as part of the African Religious Health Assets Program.

Oakland/Berkeley Lutheran Volunteer Corps

Vesper Society has provided financial support to the Lutheran Volunteer Corps (LVC), both to the mobilization team, as they organized and developed the Oakland/Berkeley LVC, as well as to the placement of a volunteer at Lifelong Medical Care in Oakland, California. Vesper staff participates in the LVC Local Support Committee as well.

The Lutheran Volunteer Corps (LVC) was founded by Luther Place Memorial Church in Washington, D.C., in 1979. The program has placed more than 1,300 volunteers in agencies in urban areas in nine communities across the country. The volunteers give a year of their lives to work for social justice and to live in intentional community with other volunteers.

Kate Conzemius, the volunteer at Lifelong Medical Care, has a nursing degree from St. Benedict’s College. She has focused her attention on a flu and cold program that includes presentations and vaccinations at the twelve housing sites of Lifelong Medical Care’s Supportive Housing Program. In addition, Kate is working on the critical health issue of diabetes care and prevention. Individuals who have seen Kate at work have commented that she has a gift for building trust with those she serves. Her contribution is greatly appreciated.

Year one of the program at the Oakland/Berkeley LVC began last August and concludes this summer. Currently, the LVC Oakland/Berkeley Local Support Committee is actively planning for the second year of the program, including determining the agencies where volunteers will be placed, matching volunteers with those agencies, and raising funds to support the program.

 

 

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Vesper Society, a private operating foundation, promotes social justice locally and globally by addressing critical social issues including the provision of health services for the underserved.