COTS is collecting gently used household items for our expanded housing program for Veterans

Dear Caring Community,

We are so proud to announce that due to the success of this program, we are expanding our permanent housing program for Veterans. We will be expanding in October 2012! We are now poised to offer eight additional Vets the opportunity to get back on their feet and under a permanent roof of their own. We have secured four apartments for them located in Rohnert Park, (the first four are in Petaluma), we offer case management and a host of services – all we are missing now is furnishings for their new homes! Can you please help?

Household items most needed are:

9 Beds: full or queen size with mattress, box spring and frame	9 Dressers
9 Nightstands	Several Lamps: table top and floor lamps
4 Couches	4 Living room chairs
Several End tables	4 Coffee tables
4 Kitchen or dining room tables with 4 or 6 chairs	Many Bed linens: twin, full and queen size
Many Blankets: twin, full and queen size	4 sets Pots and pans
Many sets of Dishes: service for at least 4	Many sets of eating utensils: service for at least 4
Serving bowls, serving utensils, baking dishes, etc.	Small Appliances: coffee pots, toasters, blenders

If you have any items that you would like to share with our deserving Veterans, please contact Program Manager, Burt Hutten:  or call 776-6506.

COTS (Committee on the Shelterless) is proud to announce our new Compassionate Listening program to help enrich the lives of the homeless women and men at the Mary Isaak Center.  All we need is a few caring individual with a little spare time.

All you have to be is you, listening compassionately and without judgment. It is simply your caring, your time and your past life experiences that will benefit the person you work with. Providing encouragement and emotional support is all that is needed for our participants to continue on their new path to a better life for themselves.

You will work with our trained, professional staff as you volunteer.

Job Description:

As part of a team of compassionate listeners, you will create a support network for someone in our community who is currently homeless. Your job is just to offer compassion, and to listen. Your job is NOT to fix, or offer solutions. This is the hardest part of being a compassionate listener—not giving advice or becoming an advocate for the person.

Commitment:

As a volunteer, you will commit to working with the Compassionate Listening program, spending at least four hours per month with someone struggling with homelessness.

Qualifications:

You must be at least 18 year old and able to meet commitment requirements. Strong interpersonal skills and ability to maintain confidentiality are also needed. A willingness to relate to people of different socio-economic backgrounds is desirable. You also will be fingerprinted.

Training:

Before joining the program you are required to attend an orientation and to attend a tour. Our professional staff will provide excellent training which will include discussions and exercises that will prepare you to become a positive mentor and strong support person. You will learn about the factors that help create homelessness and the ways that being homeless affects individuals.

Benefits:

Most of us find being part of this work to be a very rewarding experience. One person said that he had a new appreciation for his own life and blessings, and was deeply touched and humbled by the opportunity to hear the life story of one of our program participants.

For more information please call Monica Savon at: 707-971-0009 or email: .

 

We asked some of our members why people should support COTS. This is what they told us:

Celebrate COTS

and

the Last Days of Summer

at Lagunitas Brewing Company!

Tuesday, August 28, 2012

5:30 pm – 8:30 pm

$20 adults

$15 for kids 10 and under

Kids 5 and under free

Bring two cans of food (per person) for the

Petaluma Kitchen

and receive a $5 discount 

Price includes dinner and one beverage

Support COTS at this fun family event and share great conversations with neighbors, enjoy tasty beverages from Lagunitas, music by The Blue Devils Blues Band, children’s activities, a raffle with great prizes, and delicious food from restaurants and local businesses such as Laura Chenel , Lily Kai’s and more. Share great conversations with neighbors at this fun family event hosted by the generous folks at Lagunitas Brewery. We can’t wait to see you then!

Dear Friends,

We’d like to tell you about an opportunity to generate funds for COTS through collaboration with an old friend with a new name, Aqus Community.

COTS is all about community, and Aqus has been enormously supportive of our efforts. COTS is a founding member of Aqus Community and we encourage you to join in supporting them as well.

Here’s what Aqus Community is about:
Aqus Community is a way of re-weaving local community – connecting people, artisans, visionaries, nonprofits and businesses; re-establishing shared and multidimensional conversation – rebuilding common ground. It is a way of restoring our communities from the depletion and alienation of ‘modern society’ and the decline of social capital… re-localizing the way we live both for ourselves and as a legacy to the future.

How do we support our community? We gather people to share interests, talents and energy through community programs and events designed to increase our social capital thereby building a stronger and more vibrant society.

You can support this vision for community and contribute to COTS at the same time. Here’s how it works: when you become part of Aqus Community they will donate 30% percent of your first year’s membership fee to COTS. Simple as that!!

Sign up online by going to:  www.aquscommunity.com and click on ‘Become A Member.’

When registering please be sure to enter the code: COTS2012 into the “Referred By” field to ensure COTS gets the brownie points!

We are very excited to be part of the Aqus Community and we hope that you will be equally enthusiastic about joining.

Yours in community!

Your friends at COTS

11 am to 7 pm, should be a GREAT time. See you there?

The elimination of Redevelopment Agencies (RDAs) in California has left COTS with a huge government funding gap this fiscal year and a large projected gap next year. We have a three-pronged response to close the gap:

1. Reduce programs and staff (including salary cuts and layoffs-again!);
2. Increase individual and foundation giving with our Invest in Miracles strategy;
3. Advocate for state action for long-term solutions for COTS and other organizations.

We’re asking for your help advocating with the state legislature to pass the Housing Opportunity and Market Stabilization (HOMeS) Act (S.B. 1220), which funds:

• Affordable housing;
• Transitional and permanent rental housing;
• Emergency homeless shelters;
• Foreclosure mitigation, and more.

The HOMeS Act is projected to generate $700 million per year for affordable housing and programs like COTS, by imposing a $75 recording fee on real estate transactions.

We love that this bill creates a permanent funding source that:

• Provides funding for programs like COTS;
• Addresses the critical need to continue to develop affordable housing;
• Helps growing numbers of homeless people get and keep housing; and
• Helps those at risk of losing their homes to stay under a roof of their own.

Please help by:

• Clicking this link to the Housing California website, where with just a few minutes of time you can send support letters to California legislators; and
• Sharing this with your friends.

Many thanks for your support!

I’m blessed to work in a place of miracles: COTS, an agency that serves the homeless in Petaluma. I have so much to learn, and recently I was taught a lesson about being open to experience beauty in unexpected places.

Nearly every day at work I walked right past a woman who regularly waited in line for our daily lunches. She was almost always the first one there, arriving quite early to stake out her usual spot.

She sat hunched over, knees pulled into her chest, staring straight ahead. Her hair was disheveled and her clothes dirty. Her face was set and her eyes were disengaged from what was happening around her, as though she wanted to avoid interaction at all costs. To be honest, she scared me a little bit, and I’m not proud of that.

But each time I passed her, something tugged at my heart. I was ignoring a human being who deserved to be acknowledged like anyone else. I decided to say hello to her.

When I did, she turned her face toward me and looked into my eyes. It was a beautiful moment. I saw a woman who was open to me, with no trace of the sullen determination that had been there before.

A little habit formed that day. I always made sure to say hello to her, and she always looked at me and returned my greeting. Each time I felt a warm rush of joy.

Once we had a discussion. It had been a warm winter and the trees were blooming prematurely. We shared our love of the blossoms and our concern for their early appearance. Instead of the woman I once feared, I found a lucid and articulate conversationalist.

I haven’t seen her much lately, and I’m sorry I didn’t learn her name. I saw her walking once while I was driving. “There goes my new friend,” I thought.

I’m ashamed of my initial resistance to this lovely human being, but am glad that yet another piece of the wall around my heart has been broken through my experience with her. Beauty lurks in unexpected places. May we be courageous enough to see it.

 

Dear Friends,