Green Door Givers
A program-sustaining way to give
Named for the green door at our offices where folks drop off clothes and food to donate, the Green Door Givers are those folks who commit to making a recurring monthly gift to The Shalom Project. Monthly gifts play an important role in our organization, as consistent donations not only support our various programs, but help us to better plan how to distribute our resources over the course of a full calendar year.
Read on below to learn about a current Green Door Giver, and about a patient at our Medical Clinic who your monthly gift could help support.
Carolyn Coram
“The Shalom Project can rely on me.”
Carolyn started volunteering with The Shalom Project over 15 years ago. “It was just a calling to us,” she says of her husband Clint and herself, as well as their Faith in Action Sunday School class, which began providing meals regularly at the Medical Clinic in 2008.
She still volunteers when she can, along with others from her home church of Ardmore UMC, helping out with gifts for our December Holiday Party and making delicious homemade ice cream each year for The Big Chill. But beyond helping with those yearly events, she’s grateful to stay involved each month as a Green Door Giver as well.
“Randomness doesn’t really help you have a budget that you don’t have to worry about all the time.” Carolyn says. “Routine giving fuels an organization with reliable resources to go beyond seeing a need to fulfilling a response.”
Carolyn draws inspiration from Bishop Michael Curry, who laments what he calls “a crisis of priorities” in the US. Carolyn and Michael Curry agree: it’s about having an attitude of we, not me.
“I can’t be there every Tuesday, but I can certainly make an every-month gift.”
Join Carolyn as a Green Door Giver to help support The Shalom Project’s important work in our community!
Luz
“Here they treat me well. They get me my medicine. What more could I want?”
We have a patient at our Medical Clinic who we’ll call Luz. Luz moved to Winston-Salem a decade ago to help take care of her daughter, who was undergoing a high-risk pregnancy. Eight days after arriving, however, Luz found herself in the hospital with an inflamed gallbladder. After undergoing surgery, she became connected with The Shalom Project’s Medical Clinic.
“They do so much to help people, even though they don’t have any obligation,” Luz says of the folks at the Clinic.
Now Luz mostly frequents the Clinic’s Pharmacy for insulin to help treat her diabetes, and has also received referrals to see other doctors to help with muscle spasms and receive preventative care.
Luz values self-reliance and enjoys being able to help care for her daughter and granddaughter in her spare time. Her parents were also diagnosed with diabetes, but never seemed brought down by it. That’s the way Luz tries to live as well, with a positive attitude and a giving heart.
“I don’t like to get sick,” Luz says, and with The Shalom Project Medical Clinic she doesn’t have to.