October 2008 Archive of News and Musings

Thursday, October 30, 2008
Annual Report
 
I just added our Annual Report for Fiscal Year ending March 31, 2008 (PDF, 178k) and Donor Listing for the same period to the Documents page. Accountability is important in the non-profit world, and its vital that we provide you with the information you need to be well informed in your giving and volunteering. So check out this page to see our annual reports, IRS form 990's, past newsletters and other documents.

Posted by Steve Schwartz   (10/30/2008 1:09:00 PM | link)

Tuesday, October 14, 2008
An Evening Of Hope
 
Our 2008 Ministry Celebration Banquet on September 18 was a special evening of old and new friends gathering with us to hear and celebrate all that is going on at BHA. Our biggest crowd ever (about 215 people) gathered to be blessed by inspiring testimonies, the music of The Stevenson Twins and Joelle Ewell, and the challenging words (and music) of our featured speaker, Rev. Saleem Ghubril. Here are some highlights:

Dennis, Chris, Shakisha and Megan mingle prior
to the start of the banquet.

Our biggest crowd ever, about 215 people, gathered for this special evening.

Bryan Davis shared affirmation
for BHA's work on behalf of the
City of Harrisburg and the Capital
Area Coalition on Homelessness.

The Stevenson Twins (Haseed, left, and Burnie)
provided the mood and inspiration throughout
the evening.

BHA participant Edna shared her journey
from homelessness to having new
opportunities and hope for a brighter
future.

Former BHA participant Joelle Ewell blessed
us with a stirring acapella performance of
Remember Me.

Our speaker, Rev. Saleem Ghubril, also turned
out to be an impromptu song leader as he
capitivated us with stories of seeing God in
everyday situations through his urban ministry
work in Pittsburgh.

Heather Kelly, Director of Development,
joined with Steve Schwartz, Executive Director,
to share the exciting news that BHA is
expanding to serve three additional families
starting in January 2009.

The evening concluded with Board Members Dr.
David Weaver-Zercher and Dr. Debra Heath-
Thornton kicking off the 2008-2009 Harvest
of Hope Annual Funding Campaign.

Posted by Steve Schwartz   (10/14/2008 1:53:24 PM | link)

Monday, October 13, 2008
Welcome, Lisa!
 
I'm pleased to introduce our newest staff member, Lisa Brown. As our new administrative assistant, Lisa will handle a variety of administrative tasks, as well as keeping us organized and helping the rest of us do our jobs better. She'll also answer the phones and greet you when you stop by...at least during the hours of her part-time schedule.

It was a several month process of finding Lisa and we're excited to have someone with such a heart for ministry and a history of urban community service. Special thanks are due to Elizabeth Schwartz, Ziva Little and Corrie Spellman for their interim help.

Posted by Steve Schwartz   (10/13/2008 10:09:47 AM | link)

Monday, October 13, 2008
BHA in Stained Glass
 
This is pretty cool. My good friend Peggy Spellman heard we wanted to upgrade our display. Now please understand, displays that organizations use to share about their work at ministry fairs and non-profit expos can easily run a couple thousand dollars. However, we wanted a display more inline with our mission and values...and budget. But the old flannel graph display was, well, underwhelming.

So somewhere along the way an idea was hatched to create one ourselves, using some old windows from one of our buildings. When some new windows were being installed, we saved two old windows. Andy Rash, professional artist and husband of staff member Jennifer Rash, help us clean up and paint the windows, and mount them together in a foldaway fashion. We replaced the glass with plywood (which lightened it considerably) and designed images to insert into each pane. We got them printed online and then Andy mounted them.

Then in comes Peggy. She hears about this and, well, one of her specialties is stained glass...and she offers to make a replica of the BHA logo in this medium. The end result is one of the most unique displays I've ever seen. So how'd she (and we) do?

Peggy's stained glass replica, as compared to...

...and the full display.

Posted by Steve Schwartz   (10/13/2008 9:58:20 AM | link)

Monday, October 13, 2008
Thanks Capital Blue Cross!
 
This is a bit belated, but we want to give a shout out to Capital Blue Cross for the team of people they sent out to partner with us on September 5. Their participation was arranged through the United Way of the Capital Region's annual Day of Caring event. The motivated team braved high temperatures to help us with a variety of maintenance projects. Thanks team!

Posted by Steve Schwartz   (10/13/2008 9:20:20 AM | link)

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