Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day.  Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.

I think I was pretty young when I heard that now famous quote by Zhong Ni – aka Confucius.  I am pretty sure that I did not understand it at that age and I asked my Dad or someone about it and got explanation.  There is so much in life that we pick up at a young age and give no credit to it; it probably has a lot to do with relating the memory of something to a particular behavior.  I would guess a great deal more to having that memory in the first place; we forget so much of our childhood it seems.

This quote in a nutshell describes the difference that I talked about in my last post.  Many organizations and groups out there are more than happy to give a man a fish.  Give those in need a meal, or a temporary place to lay their head, sometimes even clothing.  There are many people, groups and organizations that provide those in need with the tools that they need to be successful, literacy training, works skills, financial skills.  But tools are only good if there are resources to apply them to.  I can give you many different hammers, and thousands of nails, but they are worthless if you have no wood.  I can give you any saw that you want to make wood from trees, but what good is the saw if there are no trees?  How about I give you millions of seeds to hundreds of varieties of trees?   What good is it if you have no land to plant them?  Do you see my point, there always has to be a resource to apply a tool to.

That is what I think puts the end goal of 200Million-Nickels.com in another league from most of the other entities out there are doing in their approach to the problem of homelessness.  These efforts are great and they do make a difference, but I think that there needs to be more.

And more there shall be.  When the funds are raised there will be the acquisition of housing, industrial space, retail space and professional to make it all come together.  Homeless people will be recruited as employees to help build, retool and remodel these facilities to a usable state.  Once complete more will be recruited to fill positions in the manufacture of consumer products to be distributed through the retail spaces.  While employed they will receive job training and provided with housing and transportation.  Additional training will be available to further their skills outside of manufacturing to assist them on both the personal and professional level.  Once 18 months of employment are completed they will be placed into a job placement program to assist them in furthering their careers with other companies and have the skills, confidence and resources to continue on with their lives.  This will create a new opening for another person to enter in and get the assistance needed to rebuild their life as well.  In addition to getting the benefits mentioned above, they will also be provided a paycheck and health insurance.  Who doesn’t like it?

Now that you all know my dream can you be a part of it?  Will you help me?  Again, here are two ways to do it; go to 200Million-Nickels.com and click on the  Contribute button at the top of the page and give what you can, or you can go to BirdHousesandFeederStore.com and make a purchase of which 20% will go to this project.  Here is a bonus way that you can help, simply share this with others.  Helping to spread the word to others will help this dream become a reality much faster than keeping it to yourself.

That’s all for tonight, leave me some feedback and share your thoughts and your dreams.

Take care web.