This open letter to the community is meant to express the heart-felt thanks of Middleton Outreach Ministry for answering “the Call.” You may recall in a column from last November, I begged the question, “After all the calls to give in 2005, will you give again?”  I was concerned about “compassion fatigue” on the home front.  I wondered out loud, “Would year-end giving rise, as when ‘a rising tide floats all boats’?  Or will it recede, as did the flood tide in New Orleans?”

The well of compassion may have run dry elsewhere, but not in Middleton. In December an abundance of goodwill carried us through our most successful year-end finish, on all three fronts.

First, THANKS for a big increase in overall giving: You area residents, churches, businesses, service clubs, and others gave over $472,000 in 2005 December giving was HUGE, with a record number of new and loyal donors wiping out this year’s lag and a previous year’s deficit. Your over-and-above giving allows MOM to fulfill some key ministry initiatives and enhancements in an aggressive 2006 budget (at $464,000, almost 8% larger than last year). Your gifts enable MOM to feed the hungry, house the homeless, visit the elderly, and more.

Joan Deming oversees our fund appeals and sends letters of appreciation, weekly, to many of you. My debt of gratitude goes to her and to you donors, for freeing me of my worries this year.  But no single year-end thank-you can sum up MOM’s appreciation for all who “answered the call.” You make Middleton the “Good Neighbor” city.

Second, THANKS for our biggest ever Christmas Dinner at St. Bernard’s Church: We fed over 416 people with an all-you-can-eat plate of turkey & ham, potatoes & trimmings, pies & cookies. Our thanks to all who provided, prepped, served and cleaned up this annual event. We thank Clasen’s for the bread, Connie Ott for playing familiar Christmas carols, and Rose for singing her heart out in a guest appearance.

My thanks, as well, to the Marriott-West, the Fairfield, and the Hilton-Garden Inn for sheltering dozens of homeless guests Christmas Eve and Day, so we could then feed and fellowship with them at St. Bernard’s. Thank you, Andrea Flickinger (assisted by Cindy Liu), for again organizing all 200 volunteers.

My third round of THANKS goes to all who gave so that low-income families would not “miss Christmas” (see my column, this issue, on “What’s missing for Christmas”). A record number of you employee groups and families “adopted” a family in need. You were reflecting the Gift of Christmas. Altogether we served 270 families, with almost 700 kids. That’s up from 227 families adopted for Christmas gifts in 2004. 

One adopted family writes: Thank our “secret Santa” for “knowing [my daughter] is pregnant because she really needed some maternity pants and they are so cool the way they stretch and still looks fashionable.” Another thanks her donor family for being more like an “angel.” I’ll deflect that gratitude to the angel-like Sarah Mackesey and Ellen Carlson, the two MOM staff who once again expanded and coordinated this Christmas program. 

Thank you, one and all, for letting your light shine through MOM—last month and year-round. For more opportunities to get involved, check our website, www.mompop.org.

Gratefully yours,

Dietrich Gruen, MOM Director

© 2005 Middleton Outreach Ministry

Site design and maintenance donated by Liberty Professional Services, LLC
Hosting donated by TDS Metrocom