Good morning, good morning, good morning, and welcome, welcome, welcome time now for our community connection right here on K one, the one you trust, and today with the Lighthouse Outreach, we have Errol with us today.
And how you been, young man. I've been in great well.
I'll tell you what.
You just look like you're the p knuckle of health these days. You must have been working out.
Huh. I've been very blessing good health.
You know, the Lighthouse has been with us for a good long time and we're thankful for it. And you know, sometimes we have people who just move into town and they're not familiar with everything quite yet. And then there are some folks who've been in town in all their lives and still not too familiar.
So how long has a lighthouse been in operation?
This is a thirty second year. We're born.
We were started in nineteen ninety two Nao Milanier start found the Life House. God gave her a call to start a ministry like this, and this is back before we were aware of the need of it.
I remember meeting her a couple of years ago on the thirtieth anniversary.
It was really good.
Now in that time I imagined you served just a lot of people we have.
It's hard to keep track of how many people we have served, but as I've gone through the files we have, I think about five five door files of people's information and folders, and I figured that over ten thousand people we've served in the thirty two years have been here.
Wow, now, ERL.
When we talk about having clients of folks staying with you here, how long is it that they usually stick around.
It varies from person to person, and some shelters say you can only stay up to thirty days or maybe two weeks. We don't have a limit. Our guide. Our gauge for that is as long as they're making progress and working toward getting their life better, and as long as they need to still be there. My prayers that
nobody leaves me before they should. And that's an issue because if they leave before they're really ready, they're either going to be back, or something happened that they don't even want to come back or aren't able to come back. So I just did a study the other day about about a week ago of the current residence right now, and the average stay is twelve months twelve and a half months long, and that varies from that's because some
have been there four or five years. Some in there two three weeks, and so some people come they're just here for two three days and maybe that's all they needed to get on to the next stop. Some of them came and realized they didn't want to have to follow the rules of living indoors and so things like that, and so they didn't stay as long. So but the average I was interesting myself because I didn't know how long it would be. But it's about about twelve months average for everybody.
And what you do there, it's not necessarily a hand out.
It's a hand up trying to get folks to get themselves oriented with God's help.
Aren't we really want them to get helping to me coming to independent Citizen, some of them come that are retired, they're disabled, and so they get a disability check, and so we urge them to start saving some of that money because the little bit of costs that we charge.
Them fifteen percent of their income when they're living.
There, but they've got that other eighty five percent and they should be able to save a lot of money.
And some of them have several thousand saved ups.
Some of them don't have any, and those who don't have any, we work with them because the best opportunity to save money is right there where they live in the lighthouse.
Everything fruits provided, everything like that.
So we give them opportunities to be able to.
Have less money after they pay their fines and things like that.
That you get paid off too. Oh yeah, so you get to restart almost right with that. Now, how much, like you said, it's fifteen percent right of their income here? How are you funded? How do you keep the doors open? It seems like a kind of a big undertaking here.
It's a lot bigger than I thought it was when I started out.
Recently.
I begin at the end of every year, I figure out how much it costs to run the place and then divide that by the number of days. And last year it was one thing six and fifty eight dollars per day to operate the lighthouse.
And we're funded by individuals.
We do a mail out every month with a direct mail service, and we get.
Letters from there's a man in Sedan, Kansas.
He sends us a dollar every month and that helps just cover the posted to that. But then we get some many with the five a dollar check. Some people twenty five dollars every month. Some churches have put us into their budget. They've been for years been giving so much a month, and we were breast that way. People donate in variety of ways, right.
You know.
One thing that I noticed too is that you guys aren't afraid to go out and have big old yard tail every now and then.
We do have a lot of furniture and dishes donate to us, and clothing and we do the garage sale to.
Help raise money.
Also, we do clothing while we don't need access that we after giving the residents those that needs to clothes, we bag them up and we sell them to a wholesale place that they they distribute them to different thrift stores. Some of them goes to missions, and then some of the clothes that are unusable or recycling in the rags and we get about five thousand dollars for semiload for that.
We've done that about four or five times now. So access clothes.
There's so many we got all of us have so many clothes that there's such an access. But here's some good coming out of that if you needed a place to get rid of some of that.
So we appreciate that very much.
This is called the kindest form of recycling, right it truly is now eron what are the safeguards that you guys have in place there at Lighthouse Outreach to assure the public that the money's being handled properly, because people will make a donation, but they'll always have that houses handled.
And that's a very good question because we hear from time to time of somebody that was taking money from an organization, some fund that was used to help people with then the money was being siphoned off in different ways. And so we're a member of the Evangelical Council of Financial Accountability ECFA, which the nationwide is like the good Housekeeping Seal of Approval, and there's all two ministries in Bartlesfield, but I remember that voice the artist and us and
which we have a set of guidelines. And one of the things we have in place is when the donations come in, two people open those envelopes and record it together, so that way there's an accountability there. The bookkeeper doesn't sign the checks, someone else signs the checks. We do
periodic audits and annual reviews voluntarily. We were not being forced to being audit, but we do that just to maintain our integrity, because it's very, very important that people recognize the money being given is being used as it was designated.
We have people that designate funds.
We got a grant not too long ago for a stroke rehabilitation because some of our residents come they've had a stroke, but they have no help. They're still limping, they're still not fully functional, and many of them could have been if they had got it soon. If some of them is too late when they come to us. Some of them were good doing that, but that money is earmark for that. We have a grant for eyeglasses, which is a wonderful opportunity because the most place it's
hard to get free eyeglasses place. Now that we can use that, we keep a close account of that and we keep it separate in the books, and so as an account is used, it's Disney.
That way.
We had someone that gave money for children, and we set aside that for that.
So every dollar has its name. Right. Wow, that is great, That is great.
What's your current population there at Lighthouse Outreach today?
I think we had seventy two people there and you know, we're gonna have homelessness all around us, and I wanted to sell. Sharon ill Strats hared years ago there was a man walking down the beach after a high tide, and there's a bunch of starfishes that had floated out into the sand and they're going to die out there in the sand because they have no way to mobility
other than being in the water. And there was a man walking down the beach and he was picking up these starfish and throwing it back into the ocean.
And somebody came up and says, what are you doing. He said, I'm throwing back the starfish.
He says, no, that's gonna make a difference. There's millions I'm out here, and that's gonna make a difference. The guy stopped, looked at him and reached down, picked out and made a difference to that one.
And that's the way the light is. We're not able to.
Give each everybody in the community, but everyone that we help, it makes a difference in their life.
And you got a lot of things that are going on.
I got to tell you there's a lot of motion and emotion that happened to at Lighthouse.
What do you have.
Well, in addition to the daily helping people get out of a deep hole they found themselves in. We're doing some construction, remodeling all the rooms upstairs. We've got a wonderful grant from several different organizations to foundations to pay for it, and we've got about five rooms done so far, then the process of working on two more, and then we've got about three more to go. So I maybe opportunises, but I think we're about halfway done or maybe a third done.
But everything's in turmoil.
I've said we had to move people from different rooms, and so we have moved some to our transitional house right now. But it's moving along and it's exciting and we're gonna have some really nice renovation to get a new furniture. We had several grants given for specifically for furniture, so it gives me going quite well. And so that's one thing. We're getting ready to build a house across the street. We bought a house for a transitional house.
It was full of termites. We had to have it torn down, and now we've got the grant all the money to pay for it.
We've got signed the contract a.
Couple of days ago to build a two bedroom home there, which housed four people for transitional housing. So a lot of good stuff going in the construction area, but also just every day people get in their lives together.
A man came to my office just excited the other day.
He'd gone up to Great ben Kansas to meet with a judge about getting.
His daughter back out of a bad situation.
And the judge says, so that he gets his own house, his own place.
And he'll be able to get his daughter back. So those are exciting things happening too, there are.
And you know, you've seen all these miracles that happen pretty much every day, and that has to be, you know, what keeps a lot of things going.
It's got to be that matter of the heart.
It's very very encouraging.
And you know, in addition to what we see going to right now, one thing that really blesses me.
I'll be out of the community and some come up to me and.
Say, I was at the lighthouse two or three years ago, and I don't even recognize them because they've changed so much or did such a long long time. And so some of them are managers of stores here in town, restaurants here in town. A wonderful story of a lady that's managing a fast food place right now. In fact, she's coming to the Lighthouse and hiring residents there, and so it's been great to see that. And people in
the committee are so wonderful. I'll be at a store checking out buying something and they'll talk about the Lighthouse, how much I appreciate what we're doing. And it's the community has given us such good support encouragement. It keeps us doing the difficult work that we're called to do.
Wow.
Okay, Errol, what are some of the current needs. I mean, you're in the middle of some renovations. You got things, you got pieces and parts moving all over the place. What are some of the needs that you have right.
Now or one of them in the remodeling right now?
In the contract, you put everything in there for them to do except painting the rooms, and so we're having to do that ourselves. And so if there's any painters would like to come in and help out, you know, for a day or whatever, just let us know, because that's the need we have right now. We're always needing paper products, paper towels, toilet paper, and napkins.
That's something that doesn't sound a very exciting thing to do, but really helps us out.
We spend quite a bit of money each month on that to volunteer to help out, maybe come in and help serve a meal. If churches want to take on a meal and serve a meal. We've got about in nine churches that every month they fix a meal, bring it and serve it.
That's a wonderful thing.
Way to get involved with the people in the White House, but also to help us out. Also, the biggest one is prayer, because we're in a spiritual battle. We're trying to rescue people from a lifestyle that's very destructive and there's enemy forces against that. So always need prayer for the director, for me and wisdom and discernment. And sometimes I have difficult decision to make and it's almost like which way do I turn because neither one looks like
a good answer, but something's got to be done. So wisdom for prayer for wisdom is a very important thing. And for the staff, they work hard, they don't get paid very much and it's difficult for them, but they're coming out of themselves. They know what it's like and how much it helps them. We also recycle aluminum cans they help support kids in other countries. If you have lumin cans you want to bring by, we'll be glad to take those.
And scrap metal. We take scrap mail out and sell it by the pound.
And we had someday gave us about twenty air conditioners the other day and we're going to take those apart and get some money out of those.
So things like that help us out. Just a variety of ways.
If maybe I didn't mention something that affects you, then give us a call. We had a man moved from Greed to Colorado came by and wants to start doing a Bible study. So he did a Bible study Wednesday morning from six thirty seven before breakfast as.
A Bible study there for the residents. So just variety of way. Just come by and see what We take a tour and see what we can help. How you can help us.
Speaking of that tour, where can we find you?
We're at fourteen eleven West Hensley Boulevard, the quarter of Hensley and Bucy, right across from the Salvation Army.
And do you still do those once a month things?
You know, I had no idea to her. We haven't done them. This summer because of construction. Oh yeah, but I talked to Linda, our director at Wellment, said, I think when you go and do it, even with the construction things, see what's going on. We've got about full rooms then we can show. So probably in September we'll start having those again. Those are wonderful oputy to get to see what the lighthouse is about.
To I understand that you always have a pretty full crowd for nice because everybody's kind of curious as to how the lighthouse works and how they can help.
And that's really a good sign here in Archamunity.
It's a blessing also to meet with people who maybe don't realize what all goes on there. And one thing that Naomi did when she started the lighthouse, she wanted to ice keep it neat and clean. Didn't have much money, but you can be neat and clean when you're poor, and so she kept that going and so we tried to maintain that. And you walk in it's a bright, pleasant place, no foul smells. It does look like a
very inviting place. Our chapel especially, we have it very well decorated and it's accommodating for it brings hope you've been in darkness.
It brings light.
Well, you know, that's why it's the lighthout. Yeah, it brings it in man hey, and thank you very much, and you know, God be with you.
Thank you.
And I want to also express I appreciate the radio saying you guys have been great by helping us with projects and giving us getting the word out to people.
So we appreciate it very much. Thank you.
We're more than happy to do that. It's it's in need that everybody needs to know about. Thank you again.
Folks, you've been watching and listening to our community connection right here on K one, the one you trust