Sunday, July 15, 2007

Denver and Back in 4 Days...

This past week Mandy and I traveled to Denver, CO to receive some consulting from Warren Village (www.warrenvillage.org).  It was an incredible trip and we learned a ton.   I really appreciated the openness of their organization.  There was no sense of competition that you sometimes find in the nonprofit world.  They have been serving low-income single parent families in the Denver area for over 30 years.  They have a 93 unit apartment complex and they use a model they developed called ‘transformational housing’.  We were able to meet with most of their staff one on one for a couple of hours each.  There were many things we learned that we will replicate into The Restoration House and their were others things we saw that just doesn’t fit our context.  They gave us a copy of their 370 page replication manual as well as host of other tools.  Their volunteer coordinator, who has been there for almost 20 years, was extremely helpful.  Please be in prayer for us as we take all of what learned in and begin to translate it to our context.  We are so thankful to our board for encouraging us to take this trip.