Skip to main content

Build and cherish relationships: Team, Service and Extravagant Thanks



The next lesson is building and forming relationships within the Frontline Team, the people we serve and those who help us serve donors, volunteers and partners. A hallmark of the reemergence of Frontline has been the team’s commitment to valuing and growing relationships. One aspect of this change was the commitment to relationships over programs. I noted to a group of young people in the community that lamented the different programs and offering that started and stopped with grant dollars that our team was committed to developing a series of relationships with them that would enable them to grow. This helped change the ministry focus and mission from reaching out people that were lost and who needed help (a nearly impossible goal) to developing leaders starting with early childhood education. Thus helping the team to raise support and gather supporters without bouncing back and forth starting and stopping program s based on support.

Lesson: In a crisis rather than looking for just a way of escape. Find a way to serve and create excellent service. The focus on becoming excellent in serving the children and families, donors and volunteers, in addition to partners has created more opportunities than we can currently capitalize upon. In adversity most look for their needs to be met rather than meeting needs.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

My Personal Black History Journey

  Black History Month has always been a favorite time for me since the second grade when I read Great Negroes Past and Present and Great Negro Scientist. I learned that I was derived from a race of people have overcome insurmountable obstacles to become distinguished throughout world history. To kick off the  remembrance of the great African American achievements, I have to note one that will never become part of recorded history. It is one that will always be emblazoned on my heart and the collective heart of the Haynes-Glover-Jones-Woodley family. It is my personal black history connection in the life of Mrs. Virgie Lee Jones. Let me provide a disclaimer. She was not a civil rights leader, scientist, orator, or entrepreneur.  She was a widowed single mother at the age of 38 with twelve children. One of the eldest of twenty-one children who never completed high school. She was not independently wealthy and never lived in a mansion. She was my...

Meditations concerning What Is The Measure Of A Man: What Really Matters In Life

This Father's Day is the first without my father Arto Woodley, Sr. It caused me to reflect on the message I shared at his funeral two months ago. I was inspired by God to talk about, What Is The Measure Of A Man. Many roles and positions are confused today; none more than the role of men in our society. We have moved from the stoic providers of homes to marginalized and oft ridiculed as husbands and fathers. In this current haze of misunderstanding we have young men and boys growing up not really sure what they should be. Their roles as fathers, husbands, leaders, priest, providers and protectors are all up in the air. When I remember Daddy ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j_IKORQWXrQ ) I think of his Shop, Woodley Auto Repair. The smell of oil, gasoline and sawdust was surrounded by various cars that needed starters, motors, or thermostats. The phone was always ringing with next customer or someone who owed a bill and trying to make payments. I think of men of the Shop, Lucky, J...

My Black History Journey: Mississippi and the Mott Brach Library

My Black History Journey:  Mississippi and the Mott Branch Library Emerging from the backdrop of home and "The Shop" was the coalescing of different factors as I entered school at Martin Luther King School for kindergarten and later Nativity/Pickett Elementary. As the Civil Rights movement was ending my teachers in our urban community were motivated to adapt the curriculum to teach the predominantly black students about themselves. Ms. Ricketts, Ms Sutfield, Ms. Gibson, Ms. Coleman, Ms. Gaines, and Ms. Clark all excelled in introducing me and my classmates to our culture . Also, we traveled to the Sepia Theater in our community to watch the movie Sounder and took a field trip to the Mott Branch Library to get our first library cards in the second grade. Mott Branch Library located on Door Street in the heart of the black community in Toledo was a sanctuary to me. There were books to address almost every question my curious mind could consider.  It happen...