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Fr. David's Journal Stories of daily life at Raphael House
July 22, 2008 Thirty-three year old father of two dropped by to say hello. He stayed at Raphael House when he was 12, and was suprised I remembered him. "Every night I have a story time with my two children. My daughter is 13 and she is really into it. We take turns telling stories some that we have read, but we make them up, too." This fellow grew up in a chaotic home. "I want my children to feel safe and secure every night." He said everything he knows about being a parent he learned at Raphael House as a boy. July 15, 2008
July 14, 2008
July 4 2008 260 parents and children, plus another 30 staff and volunteers gathered in Golden Gate Park for our annual Fourth of July Picnic. We reserve the same spot every year in the picnic area above the children’s playground. June 17, 2008 Ralitza, our after school coordinator, is in charge of horse camp all week long at the stables near Half Moon Bay. The Square Peg foundation donates the use of the horses and their staff who supervise the children. June 16, 2008 Board approved a balanced budget for the next year. Very tight, but then again, it always is. That is life in the non-profit world, but each year we grow. June 14, 2008 Anna led an outing to the Monterey Aquarium – three van loads of former resident families. All day trip relaxing and beautiful. June 13, 2008 Second day of Summer Institute. I presented the operational principles of Raphael House, and then we took a field trip to West Oakland to see the amazing work of Carol Cole, our former children’s program director, does at Sophia Project. The two Sophia Project houses provide high quality day care and After School programs. June 12, 2008 Summer Institute at Raphael House is in progress. Lynne Loar presented an in-service training on child protective services and abuse intervention and reporting. Program Director Terri DiMartini presented an overview of homelessness in America. June 10, 2008 Every week it seems Elaine and I run into a former resident from the 1980; s. Today it was the head waiter at a waterfront restaurant in Tiburon. His boy was born in 1989, a year after our own son Gregory. He still lives in South San Francisco, in the same house he lived in back then. Commutes to Tiburon. He likes people and his job. June 9, 2008 Another former resident from years gone by, her infant baby is now in college. He is there on a sports scholarship, but she is still struggling with the extra costs. Told her we can help in small ways, and we are planning an event this fall to raise money for children’s school costs of all kinds, college students too. We congratulated her on the success she has had over the years, the sole breadwinner and a single parent. June 6, 2008 A new grandmother – still in her youthful middle age years –dropped off a donation for Raphael House. We recognized her right away – a stalwart volunteer from 20 years back, and a resident of Raphael House before that. When you first stayed at Raphael House, I asked. “My youngest daughter was two months old at the time. She’s 28 now, so that’s it – 28 years ago!” For the past 17 years she has been working as a nurse in Seattle. Just down for a visit thought she would drop in. June 5, 2008 Served Liturgy for the Ascension in the Raphael House chapel early this morning. There are no religious requirements on the families we serve. None of them attended the Liturgy, nor were they expected to. Some people have a hard time understanding this. If the goal is not to get people to join the Orthodox Church – which it is not - then what’s the point? The point is prayer. At the center of Raphael House, we have a core staff who pray.
June 7, 2008 Today, we took fifty parents and children up to Mt. Tam for the annual Mountain Top Musical - This years production was The Wizard of Oz. Great Production. Very upbeat. Beautiful views driving up and back. June 4,2008 The Saturday Chess Club had it's school year conclusion in May, and will start up again in the fall. The ten to sixteen children who participated regularly were children who also come to Raphael House for tutoring during the week - current and former resident children. Ordering out for Pizza was a big hit as good food often adds pleasure to a celebratory event. The Chess Club was started by the Damon family with the special help of twleve year old Sloan and his Dad Allan who wanted to enrich the lives of our children using a game that has provided many memories to their family. Our thanks to the Damon family for volunteering their time! June 2, 2008 Talked to a man who stayed at Raphael House twenty years ago, he now lived in the East Bay, is 32 years old, married with three children. He said " I grew up at Raphael House." He was twelve when he and hid mother stayed with us in 1988. I thought grew up here? The family lived here for only three months, but it was a turning point for them. June 1, 2008 Raphael House families enjoyed seeing the Giants win, thought one mother suddenly went into labor, and left for the hospital just in time. Mom and baby are both doing fine. May 28, 2008 Over the Memorial Day weekend, Flavia,took 14 children rock climbing at Berkeley's Ironworks. This was the first time any of these children had done anything like this, and they had a blast. One of the young boys is in a wheelchair, but was able to get up and climbing because of the ropes and harnesses. The staff who supervise all this are pros, and made it one of the most thrilling adventures these children have had in years. Flavia, by the way is our Special Events Coordinator. She was in charge of our Annual Gala One Home,Many Hearts at the Four Seasons which raised $380,000 for Raphael House. Flavia loves parties and knows how to make them fun, but the real reason we do all this is for the children and families we serve. Flavia gives a day a week to plan and do outings with children. She is a fun person. You should know her if you like galas, special events, or doing something special for families.
Executive Director, Fr. David Lowell recognized by his alma mater Birmingham Southern College
Fr. David Lowell was recently featured by his alma mater Birmingham-Southern College. As part of the honor Fr. David addressed an assembly where he was introduced by former Raphael House resident and Rhode Island School of Design Senior,S Victoria Chrichlow-Debro. Fr. David reminisced about his tenure at BSC, and the firm foundation of learning and discovery established during his academic career. See below for Fr. David’s comments and introduction by Victoria Crichlow-Debro
Victoria’s Comments Fr. David's Comments Thank you Victoria for your kind words and for being here with me tonight. It’s a pleasure to be back at Birmingham-Southern, where I was a student from 1967 to 1971. Like so many students when they are starting out, I was not sure what I would end up doing or how I would make my living. But I did have a sense that a liberal arts degree is a great foundation for life, so I picked a major that was interesting to me personally … Religion and Philosophy … with no plan in mind as to what I would do with the degree. I just knew I wanted to serve God by helping others. As it turns out, I have spent the last 23 years living in a homeless shelter which my wife and I run, and where we have raised our own two children alongside hundreds of other children every year. It has been a great deal of fun seeing very young children—like Victoria—grow into creative and thriving adults. Oddly enough, my rapid assumption of responsibilities after leaving Birmingham-Southern meant that I never received any higher degrees, even when ordained into the priesthood in the Eastern Orthodox Church, because I was constantly “in harness”, so to speak. Nevertheless, in my private time I have always kept myself active and closely linked to scholarly circles such as the Society of Biblical Literature where I frequently run into the very influential Roy Wells, my Old Testament Professor from right here at Birmingham-Southern. What my degree from Birmingham-Southern gave me was a foundation for an intellectual life that I have been building on ever since. I cannot emphasize enough how important this has been in my life. Here on this campus, I developed a love for learning and the capacity to compete with others intellectually, and to learn from them. The liberal arts foundation I received at Birmingham-Southern College gave me the confidence I needed to talk to anyone in the world on any subject. A great education doesn’t give you all the answers. It shows you how to find them. It’s misleading to talk about any institution giving an education, because so much of what we carry away with us is the time, work, and study that we put in ourselves. It is more accurate to use the old fashioned concept of earning a degree, because that is closer to the heart of the matter. But looking back I also have to say that the context in which we earn our education affects us forever. We gain confidence in how we speak when we are in the presence of other students and faculty who have the highest strivings and standards. This is why I came to Birmingham-Southern in the first place. It had the reputation of being one of the best schools in the South for combining academic excellence with intimacy and warmth. I loved the discipline of steady reading that I developed at Birmingham-Southern. I missed the intellectual disciplines and deadlines after I graduated, and I spent the next 25 years trying to get back to the same pace of reading and study as I had while I was at BSC, and that in itself is a testament to the impact of the education I received here. It became a discipline of learning which I internalized and carried forward into my life, which is exactly what a good education is supposed to do. For the past 22—now well into 23—years, I have been running San Francisco’s oldest shelter for homeless families. It is very concrete, time-consuming, and real. What makes it possible to live this kind of life is a healthy faith in God complemented by a strong intellectual life, a good sense of humor and irony, and a love of people. My young adulthood was formed in precisely that kind of milieu at Birmingham–Southern, and I am doing the best I can to live that way today. I want to thank all of you for your support of the education we are continuing to grow here at Birmingham-Southern. Thank you.
Jefferson Award WinnerCongratulations to Raphael House's own Father David Lowell, winner of the JEFFERSON AWARD. This award is administered by the American Institute for Public Service, a national foundation that honors community service. View the Video on our Jefferson Award on CBS:
Wonderful article from SF Chronicle:
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