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Fish

Posted by Tug Brice on 12 Mar. 2020

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It’s been a hard time for us here at $O$. We had to shut down operations for a while. That was a tough decision, but a necessary one. We found ourselves, entirely by accident, operating in a space where we were one of the only providers of support to the homeless community. Small though it may have been, it was still enough to drain us. We had to face a hard truth, that this wasn’t a sustainable situation, and shut it down.

$O$ was never meant to be a service provider. Yes, we do supply some services to those who need it, but that is only so that we can generate data. $O$ is always looking toward the bigger mission: creating sustainable change and permanent solutions. To use the familiar expression, you can give someone a fish every day, but that doesn’t solve their problem. Teaching them to fish is better, but it is an individual solution for an individual person. It doesn’t help a community of hungry people. What we want to do is build a fishing school. 

Yes, we know that while we build these long term solutions, people still go hungry. That’s why we provide some services. But if all we do is give people fish, we have to tend to our own supply of fish and don’t have the ability to build a building and arrange for teachers and do all the other things that come with creating a school. I realize the metaphor is wearing a bit thin now, but that’s okay.

There are already people out there who are much better set up than we are to feed the homeless. Especially this early in our organization’s development. Our own staff is having money worries currently. We do have some donors, but we are not set up to be a primary provider for an area without any support. So we shut down, for now. We will be back when we have a better support network and more funds, but for now, we have to tend to our own fish before we can give out any others. If you can’t stand on your own, you can’t help anyone else either.

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