Six Month Report(July 1, 2007-----December 31, 2007)

Summary of Quarters 3 and 4 of Year 2007

An apartment was rented for two months for our two homeless clients, John and C.E., who continue helping us feed the poor each Friday and Saturday. Their apartment lease expired last August 19, and we were unable to secure a city-subsidized apartment for them after that date. The city screening process has been long and drawn out, requiring copies of birth certificates, social security numbers and interviews. John received a city letter just before Christmas, saying that the preliminary evaluation has been completed, and he should hear from them again within the next three months---be ready to move into a city-subsidized apartment on short notice. We are thankful for the help of Deacon Jack Fernan for obtaining the required $50.00 per month apartment rent money required by the city, form the Holy Redeemer Eucharistic Adoration Society in exchange for John helping out with adoration hours during the cold winter months. John and C.E. have stayed at my house and at Kathleen's house recently when the weather has been very cold. As a Christmas present, PLD-Madison recently paid for two nights stay at a Hotel in thanks for their faithful help during the last year.

Following the retreat and business meeting, on September 20, 2007, Sister, Gie Best (a PLD member in training) and I drove to Milwaukee to begin again feeding homeless people there. During Sister's visit to Madison, it was discovered that the little group in Milwaukee, led by Raymundo V, had stopped feeding the homeless there two months previously. Upon our arrival in downtown Milwaukee, a city larger than Madison, Sister prayed and sprinkled us with Holy water and we set out down the street with twenty bag lunches, ten pairs of socks and five toothbrushes. We encountered a few needy people who gratefully accepted a bag lunch. But it was when Sister met Shiela, a thin lady with AIDS, and her husband that we were led by them to a park where we found many brothers in need. All that we had brought with us was soon handed out---Thanks be to God! With God's help, we have returned to Milwaukee to feed homeless for the last fifteen weeks in a row. Steve, who has relatives in Milwaukee, has been doing most of the feeding and is actively seeking to find Milwaukee residents to take over the feeding there. We ask for your prayers that Pro Labore Dei will become firmly established in Milwaukee.

Feeding

In the last six months of 2007, we have given out approximately 4,640 meals. With God's help, since we started feeding in September, 2003, we have given out some 25,459 meals. We thank God that we have been able to continue feeding the poor every Friday and Saturday for over four years! On Friday, December 21, we served our "Christmas Dinner" dinner to the homeless inside Holy Redeemer School, consisting of sirloin steak and other "goodies". Including bag lunches, we gave out 103 meals that day. That day also marked the one year anniversary of PLD feeding the homeless indoors. We have continued to cook or serve food at St. Martin House twice each month for over four years, thanks to God and faithful members and helpers. I continue to drop off a box of donated food each Friday for Danita and her five children. In November, PLD-Madison gave Danita a check to help pay her electric bill---she is currently unemployed. Mercedes donated her "old" refrigerator to the PLD House here which we use every week to store milk, juice, eggs, meat and frozen bread. On December 17, 2007, Mercedes, Mariuxi and I applied to Second Harvest Food Bank to be eligible to buy food at a greatly reduced rate. We should hear from them soon.

Clothing

We continue to distribute clothes on Fridays and Saturdays after feeding. We also distribute toiletries. Sometimes, homeless people help us. Lynn has been successfull in asking for and getting clothing and toiletry donations from the hospital where she works. Dr. Tim Galvez and his wife, Mary Lou, support group members, purchased, at a reduced rate, about 100 used winter coats.

Visitation

We continue to help two people in a nursing home on a weekly basis. We also, each week, buy groceries for an elderly widow who lives alone and have dinner with her most Friday and Sunday nights. Sr. Stella Maris has asked Gie Best to help start a more active visitation program here, which Gie has told me she has been working on.