by Kathy Izard
They met each week to attend a baseball game or to have Sunday dinner with Scott’s wife and kids. It wasn’t long before Coleman became part of the Mercer family.
In learning to trust Scott, Coleman shared a part of his story that few knew. It was true that Coleman had met Joann right after his encounter with the man who got cut in half by the train. But Coleman told Scott the real reason he had the courage to approach Joann was because he’d met a man who was as much of an angel as Scott.
A year before, after Coleman had prayed, “God, I don’t want to die out here,” he had been at the UMC getting lunch. A volunteer came up and touched the huge cyst on Coleman’s shoulder. It was now as big as a small melon.
“Son, you need to do something about that.”
Maybe because he had just witnessed the man killed by the train, Coleman was starting to believe this growth might actually kill him. Coleman did what he hadn’t done before: he admitted his fear to this UMC volunteer.
“I can’t go to a hospital again,” Coleman said and confessed the whole story about the pain and paralysis from his hernia operation.
“Tell you what; how about you help me with some odd jobs, and I will help you get a surgeon who will take that thing off and do it right?”
Skeptical, Coleman agreed. But he secretly planned to miss the appointment even as the kind man promised to make one.
Coleman began meeting the man each morning to help him with odd jobs. One day after finishing early, they stopped for lunch at a fried-chicken restaurant. His new boss went to order while Coleman went into the restroom. As he was coming out, an African American woman in her fifties was standing right outside the door almost blocking his exit.
“Ma’am, this is the men’s room. You don’t want to come in here,” he said.
“No, I know. I was waiting for you,” she told him. “I have a message from God for you.”
Coleman had no idea why she would say that to him, but he wanted to get away from her. He tried to move past, but he was trapped in the tight hallway.
“Go ahead, everything is going to be all right,” she cryptically assured him.
Every hair on his body stood up. Did she mean the surgery? Had his new friend put her up to this?
“If you allow me,” she went on, “I’m supposed to pray for you.” And there, in the cramped restroom hallway of a fried-chicken chain, she put her hand on his arm, bowed her head, and prayed. By the time the prayer was over, Coleman said, he felt as if the weight of his enormous cyst lifted and he was light as a feather.
No sooner had she whispered amen than she was gone, leaving him in the hall alone and astonished. Coleman walked slowly to join his friend, who had been watching his unusual interaction.
“Who was that?” the man asked Coleman.
Coleman didn’t know. He was starting to explain when the man’s cell phone rang. It was the hospital. They had a cancellation and could see Coleman day after tomorrow for surgery. Could he make that?
Coleman thought of the mysterious woman, her assurances, and her prayer.
“I believe I can,” Coleman said.
This time there were no complications—only one more tiny miracle. The procedure was an outpatient procedure, but in Coleman’s case, because he had no home, he would be released after surgery onto the streets. Coleman worried he would die of an infection, not being able to properly care for the wound in his dirty camp under the bridge. But when it came time to leave the surgery center, Coleman was told he was going to Samaritan’s House—a respite care home in Charlotte for cases like his. Coleman spent three days in Samaritan’s House, and although the surgery left a scar from shoulder to shoulder, he walked out on the fourth day and never had a problem with his incision.
Ever since Coleman had prayed to a God he didn’t believe in, it seemed good things had begun happening. First the stranger with work, then the prayer woman, then a successful surgery, then meeting Joann, being accepted by Homeless to Homes, getting sober, and befriending Scott Mercer.
It was enough to make a man start believing in something.
eighteen
THE FIRST YES
When you want something, all the universe conspires to help you achieve it.
—Paulo Coelho1
I was starting to believe in something too. If I had heard Coleman’s story a year earlier, the word prayer would have made me squirm. But that was before I met Lynn Pearce Tate or Scott Mercer or even Coleman. That was before Bill Holt had wandered into my life with the same dream of doing something about the same problem that was keeping me up at night. Not only was this project much bigger than I had imagined, I sensed it was also being designed by someone other than me.
It was time to live up to the second promise I had made Denver.
David Furman’s architectural drawings were complete, but we still didn’t have a name for our project. Sixteen months before, when he was leaving Charlotte, I had asked Denver, “Can I name it after you?”
At that time I didn’t even know what “it” was. Now I did.
I invited John and Pat Moore to the Urban Ministry Center, telling them I wanted to give them a progress report on the pilot program. When they arrived, they brought their adult son, Kent, who was also a volunteer at the UMC. Kent sang with our homeless choir, Voices of Love.
After I gave the Moores a Homeless to Homes update, I spread the newly finished architectural rendering on the conference table. David, along with fellow architect Steve Barton, had dreamed big: three stories formed an L shape around an interior courtyard with a pavilion. Their plan showed all the features I had seen at the Prince George building in New York City: a computer lab, a library, an art center, a community garden, secured entrance, medical room, and counseling center. Natural light would fill the building through windows in every apartment, and the dining room would feature three-story glass panels soaring on two sides. There would be eighty-five studio apartments, each a modest 366 square feet, with their own galley kitchens and bathrooms.
Going through all the drawings with John and Pat, I wished they could be made real just by willing them into existence.
It was time to tell them the reason we had asked them here.
“In honor of all you have done and all Denver inspired, we would like to name this Moore Place,” I told them. “After all three of you.”
John looked shocked, and Pat’s eyes welled up. Kent laughed. “I can’t wait to see how this goes! They have never let anything be named after them!”
A minute passed and neither John nor Pat spoke. I was starting to worry they thought we wanted something from them.
“We aren’t looking for more money,” I assured them. “We wouldn’t be this far without your belief in the pilot program. This is just a way to honor that and thank you.”
They were holding hands at the conference table and tearing up looking at the drawings. I knew they were private people; maybe this wasn’t the honor we thought it was going to be.
Pat finally spoke, “I think if it is to honor Denver, too, then we could be all right with that.”
Moore Place was fully born.
Denver Moore, John and Pat Moore. They were from different states, opposite ends of the economic spectrum, no relation, but they shared the same vision and the same last name.
Coincidence?
I was starting to believe it was something more: a God-instance.
With the building name decided, our last hurdle remained: the money. Dale and I approached large churches and existing donors, but we were greeted mostly with skepticism that we could ever raise the remaining $9.5 million. Hugh McColl III and I went on dozens of corporate and foundation calls but were met with southern politeness when we said we had exactly one funder to date backing the building project.
Applying to the city and state for money wasn’t going any better. The City of Charlotte denied our request for $500,000 because the neighborhood opposed us. The neighborhood association and their city-council representa
tive still wanted Moore Place anywhere but in their backyard.
There was a long application process for city money, which required a city council vote. At that point we had only two of the eleven representatives willing to vote for us. The state of North Carolina was even more complicated, with a request for funding requiring a lengthy legislative process. We needed money now. The amount we needed was also so huge that even a generous gift of $25,000 still left a monumental money mountain to climb. We needed big, million-dollar kinds of believers—those willing to be a little unconventional in their giving.
Bill Holt had not stopped dreaming of asking his bank, now Wells Fargo, to be such a believer. Despite the merger and the gloom caused by all the banking turmoil, Bill called periodically with optimistic updates, but meetings were inevitably dashed and further delayed by the practical realities of the merger.
None of that bothered Bill. He had faith that if we were patient, it would all work out. From the announcement of the merger in October 2008, Bill and others continued to work behind the scenes. But time was running out to realize this dream of a huge gift from a bank. No other donors were going to take us seriously if all we had was the money to buy the land.
Finally our wait ended. In March 2009, Wells Fargo named its Eastern Region President, who would decide our fate.
Bill called to give us the news: Laura Schulte had received the job. A quick Google search indicated we might have a glimmer of hope. Laura was moving from California, and one of the charities she had been involved with there was LAMP—an organization that provided housing for homeless in Los Angeles.
Further reading led to more hope. LAMP was the organization profiled in Steve Lopez’s book The Soloist, which had been made into a movie. The Soloist is the true story of Nathaniel Ayers, a talented musician with schizophrenia who became homeless but was eventually housed in a LAMP apartment. We had just booked Steve Lopez to be the speaker at our next True Blessings luncheon, now going on its third year as a fundraising event for the UMC.
If nothing else, Laura Schulte would be familiar with our cause, and we could connect through the fact that Steve Lopez was coming to Charlotte on our behalf.
Twice we geared up for a presentation, and twice we were postponed due to Laura’s hectic schedule. The meeting was finally set for April 15, 2009.
Dale, Bill Holt, and I rode the elevator up to the top floor of the executive offices. All of Charlotte was visible through floor-to-ceiling windows in the sky-high conference room. I thought of all the decisions that had been made in that room and wondered if any were as personal as this. Laura Schulte had no idea how momentous this day was for us. She had no idea we had done this presentation dozens of times, waiting for someone to say yes.
We started our pitch with Bill giving the background about Moore Place and Dale giving the history of the UMC, along with the Steve Lopez connection. My part was to ask for money—the crazy $3 million part.
As Bill and Dale were talking, I tried to push down the panic. When it was my turn, I started with the remarkable success of the pilot program and our dream to expand this solution to help more than thirteen people. I heard myself make the most preposterous request: “We’d like to ask Wells Fargo to partner with us, and we ask for a gift of $3 million.”
I waited.
The words hung in the room. I wanted to take them back.
Say anything, I pleaded in my head, just don’t say no.
A friend trained in fundraising had taught me that when you ask for money, any answer but no is a win. If you ask for $100,000 and you get $100, that is still a win. We needed a win. We needed something from Wells Fargo.
Laura started speaking, but I had no idea what she was saying. My head was fuzzy, and I felt nauseated with desperation. I tried to focus. She was smiling. She was nodding. She was consulting her team.
What was she saying? “Yes.”
Laura Schulte said yes to $3 million for the most unlikely of projects. She said yes to chronically homeless men and women. She said yes, and not because she thought these homeless people would become future bank customers opening accounts. She was not saying yes because this decision would improve Wells Fargo’s bottom line.
I finally could hear Laura Schulte, who was saying yes because “this is the right thing to do.”
She stood. We all stood. She left the room. Just like that.
Our fairy godmother left the room and had no idea that in granting our wish she had changed everything. I am sure she went on that day to make a hundred other decisions. But in our world, this was the only one that mattered. There was nothing bigger.
We filed out of the conference room and pushed the button to the elevator. Bill, Dale, and I exchanged glances, making a silent pact to wait until the elevator doors closed. We stood nonchalantly as the doors slowly came together.
Like we get $3 million commitments every day.
When the doors finally glided closed, we collapsed with relief, with happiness, and with the unimaginable improbability of it all. Even with his solid belief in God, Dale had not seen this coming. I started to cry and looked at Bill and realized he was crying too. Here was the man who had predicted it. It had been 459 days since Liz Clasen-Kelly and I sat in his office and heard his plan to ask for $3 million from his employer. At the time it was just an audacious dream, and we had all just been witness to it coming true.
We landed in the lobby as if we had just left Oz and ended up back in Kansas. I wanted to tell everyone, to call the newspaper and make it the morning’s headline. But we couldn’t. That was part of the deal. We had agreed to fill out grant applications, undergo a full review, and structure the terms. Wells Fargo people needed to talk with Wachovia Foundation people—a step that would turn out to be way more complicated than any of us imagined. It would take months, but that day marked our rise out of a fundraising hole.
I didn’t tell anyone our news, except Charlie. Trying to recall the details of my remarkable meeting that day, I found it all hard to believe. At dinner he kindly listened to my excitement, letting it all sink in. “That’s great, Kathy,” he said between bites. “I’m really proud of you all.”
His reaction was a little muted, and I started to wonder why.
Charlie was in finance, so even as I was telling my fantastic story, he couldn’t help beginning to do the math in his head. As amazing as this news was, he immediately grasped a harsher reality. He just didn’t want to be the one to tell me.
It was about an hour after we finished dinner before it hit me. We were in our den watching TV when a slow panic broke through my euphoria.
We now had $3.5 million pledged.
Pledged.
Not in the bank.
That left $6.5 million still to go. For homeless people. In a recession. In a banking city where everyone worked in the two big banks, and everyone was losing or had already lost their jobs. And everyone owned bank stocks in those same two companies where stock prices had plummeted to single digits in a matter of months.
It finally hit me, and I spoke out loud the very problem Charlie had been too nice to point out at dinner. “Where are we going to get $6.5 million?”
The miracle that was the Wells Fargo gift morphed into an insurmountable mountain. Without the other $6.5 million we couldn’t pay for Moore Place, and we certainly couldn’t build something we couldn’t pay for.
A silence settled between us. The TV carried on oblivious to my distress. Finally I spoke my worst fear, the one that was boring silently through me, out loud: “Charlie, if we don’t raise this money, does it mean I failed?”
“Kathy, if you all can raise that money in this economy it will be a miracle.”
nineteen
CRAZY OR CALLED
How precious did that grace appear, the hour I first believed.
—“Amazing Grace”1
With the Wells Fargo pledge of $3 million and Charlie providing forgiveness from failure, I woke up each day and kept moving. But, really, I had
been only a year and a half on the job, and I was exhausted. At night I counted tenants instead of sheep, and in the day I struggled to keep the girls, grant applications, and Homeless to Homes issues straight.
I tried to hide my doubts and weariness from everyone, especially Dale. He had been doing this for fifteen years. How could I complain after not even two years on the job?
Dale had calm confidence everything would work out. God would provide. I let Dale think that, but I certainly didn’t believe that. My sister Louise sided with Dale. Ever since our initial conversation about Roseanne Haggarty, Common Ground, and the Prince George, my sister had an innate belief this was all going to happen.
Both Dale and Louise had faith. I didn’t.
I figured the only way to get this done was the earthly way of working hard, not relying on divine intervention. I had no faith God was going to rescue us. God certainly didn’t know we had a capital campaign that was short $6.5 million, that success or failure was resting squarely on me. I might agree there had been some little God-instances and even two tiny miracles with the two big gifts, but we had so far to go. I wasn’t expecting God to finish it for me.
What really bothered me was that this whole thing had started when I listened to Denver, who beyond all logic compelled me to build beds. What if his voice was no different from those that used to plague my mom?
I have indelible memories of visiting Mom on locked psychiatric wards. The most dramatic one occurred when I was a senior in high school and Mom wouldn’t open her hospital room door for my father and me to come inside.
“Lindsay,” my dad implored, “please open the door. I brought Kathy, and we want to see you.”
After a long, slow scraping noise, the door cracked open, and a hollow-eyed version of my mother appeared in the two-inch gap. She eyed us suspiciously, with no real sign of affection or recognition, just a slightly wild look of confusion as she whispered, “Come in, but keep your voices down.”