Clean Socks Hope Announces Property Purchases

NEW ALBANY, Ind. - Aug. 12, 2013 - PRLog -- Clean Socks Hope has announced plans to purchase three lots in the Midtown Neighborhood of New Albany, Indiana. "Since our collaborative Christmas Store and Neighborhood Network programs have been such successes, we can move forward with our fall goal of purchasing three dilapidated lots and take what has been for many years a blight on the city and restore them to a place of hope and redemption. Our hope is to raze the last structure on the proposed lots and use them as green space for a raised bed community supported garden and perhaps even a greenhouse," Executive Director Jeff Minton said.

The proposed purchase sets adjacent to Midtown Commons, a collaborative partner of Clean Socks Hope, Hope Southern Indiana, St John Presbyterian Church and Youth for Christ's Midtown Ministries. The green space will be run identical to the Neighborhood Network and the Christmas Store. Those programs are different than the traditional “Food Pantry” and “Adopt a Family for Christmas,” models because the patrons buy into it and run it themselves. The collaborative partners only facilitate a place and help with the initial setup and donations if needed. The families of the community run the “Midtown Dignity” programs instead the old food pantry/ Angel Tree models that creates voids in families without transportation and typically only allows access to help a few times a year. The goal is to have 12 large raised cedar beds representing 12 families who will apply, plant and tend their own vegetable gardens beginning in 2014. The greenhouse will allow the families to plant seedlings early and feed their families all year long.

"We began to fully understand that the 'love you' and 'leave you' ideas of old, plus the poorly funded and misguided governmental entitlement programs were only making the lives of our families worse, making them all the more dependent upon us creating bitterness, hopelessness and frankly betrayal. After a Monday night at Midtown Commons where we witnessed grown men knocking children down to get into the free food line we pulled the plug on all free give-aways whether it be food or anything else that folks believe they are 'entitled' to. If we continue to facilitate free food, free clothes, diapers and stoves then all we are doing is causing generations of the poor to depend upon us—not grow and become self sufficient. We believe that the answer to poverty and homelessness is not more vouchers and entitlement programming, but a messy and relational community wide movement that offers hope instead of more bureaucracy. And, that's the problem and the solution, relationships are hard, but throwing money at and creating another failed entitlement is easy, it's clean and we can go home at night feeling good about ourselves all the while our families still live in tents or are prisoners to an unscrupulous landlord. The problem is we've had 50+ years of this type of 'help,' and frankly it doesn't work. I believe Mark Twain said it best, 'This country owes you nothing. It was here first.' " Minton said.

The vision of Clean Socks Hope and its partners is to break the cycles of exploitation in Midtown by building collaborative leadership skills from childhood to adulthood, block by block, championing the human dignity of the many races, cultures and classes represented in our historic communities. We aim to create a future distinct from New Albany—Midtown’s past by weaving a social fabric out of which leadership can emerge. In such a community, children of Midtown can grow into adult leaders and find a compelling sense of ownership in this community’s future.

Clean Socks Hope is a 501©(3) nonprofit dedicated to faithfully empower neighbors toward health and wholeness.