MANDEL CENTER FOR NONPROFIT ORGANIZATIONS

Bryan Mauk, MNO Candidate

Q. You were recently presented with the 2009 John A. Yankey Student Community Service Award at the Center's Graduation Celebration for your dedication to community service and desire to improve the nonprofit sector. What does it mean to you to be recognized with this award?

Being recognized with the award is a great honor not only to me, but also to the organization and the people we serve. For me the award draws attention and understanding to the issue of homelessness and the suffering of the many individuals who experience it. It is very humbling for me to receive this honor, especially as its inaugural recipient, but I am extremely grateful for the attention it brings to the issue of homelessness and the work of the Metanoia Project.

Q. You are currently a candidate for the Master of Nonprofit Organizations degree. How do you think this degree will help benefit your career in the nonprofit sector, and what influenced your decision to enroll at the Mandel Center to pursue this type of degree?

When I finished my undergraduate studies at John Carroll University last year, I had just received the Intercollegiate Studies Institute's Simon Fellowship Grant of $40,000. This was the grant that really made the efforts and the formation of the Metanoia Project possible. In receiving the award, I really wanted to make the best use of the money to serve the homeless.

That is why I applied to the Mandel Center. I wanted to be fully prepared to maximize the effects of the many gifts I have been given over the years. The Mandel Center seemed uniquely focused on preparing the individual students in the classroom to impact society.

Since beginning my studies at the Mandel Center and work on the Metanoia Project simultaneously I have had a great "living and learning" experience. Many of the things I am learning in class at night I am using the next morning for the Metanoia Project. For me, this has made many of the classes I took (like Financial Accounting, Financial Management, Earned Income, and Economics, to name a few) very interesting and applicable to my daily life as a leader of an emerging nonprofit organization.

Q. What have you enjoyed most about your time at the Mandel Center so far? Is there anything you find to be challenging?

I have really enjoyed the variety of people I have met so far. It's actually been quite amazing. From my fellow students and the variety of nonprofit organizations and causes they are affiliated with, to the professors and the guest speakers they have brought in for class. I have had the pleasure of meeting a lot of unique people with interesting perspectives on both the nonprofit sector and life in general. I have also built some great relationships with my fellow students and my professors that have really been a blessing!

Most challenging has been balancing my work on the Metanoia Project, a part-time job (I work at a catering place on the weekend), full-time school, and a personal life. I've been busy lately...

Q. Please tell us a bit about your work on the Metanoia Project and the St. Benedict Joseph Labre Project.

Since I was in high school I have been actively involved in an outreach ministry called the Saint Benedict Joseph Labre Project (named after the patron saint of the homeless and commonly called "Labre"). Labre was started at my high school, St. Ignatius High School. I got involved late in my junior year of high school. Labre is an outreach ministry to the homeless living on the streets of Cleveland. It is like a "soup kitchen on wheels." We visit the homeless where they live: under bridges, in alleyways, and on park benches. The point of the organization is not to simply offer food to the homeless but to also offer friendship and compassion. When I graduated from high school, I brought the program with me to my college, John Carroll University. At JCU, with several other Ignatius alumni, I founded, ran, and expanded the program.

Because of the intense and sincere focus of the program on friendship with the homeless, a simple visit to the homeless once a week was not enough for many of the students who participated in the program. Out of the relationships and friendships sprung a desire to do more, to address the systemic causes of homelessness and challenges homeless individuals face.

I remember one particular night when my commitment to the homeless really solidified. It was in my junior year of college. I was visiting a group of five people who were, literally, living in a dumpster in an alleyway downtown. I was talking to one guy, Mike, who told me to: "Look around, remember us, graduate, and do something."

Those words will forever stick with me. That night I looked around on a miserable, rainy, Cleveland winter night and saw a 50-year-old lady living in a cardboard box and a group of elderly men sleeping in a dumpster behind one of the wealthiest commercial buildings in Cleveland. It was a scene and situation that I will always remember. And after my graduation I have made a commitment to "do something."

From this desire to do more, the Hospitality Center was founded two years ago (my senior year of college) and the Homes-for-Less program began last year. Both of these programs target specific needs in the homeless community and partner with other existing organizations to maximize the effectiveness of all the organizations involved.

Throughout all of this growth and development of the projects, the driving source of my commitment has always been the relationships with the individuals whom I have come to know and who have honestly touched my heart and changed my life. One great illustration of these friendships was when I graduated from John Carroll. At my graduation, in the crowd was a group of friends I had made from the streets though Labre, including Mike. When I thanked them for coming, they said they "wouldn't have missed it for the world" and honestly meant it.

After my undergraduate graduation from John Carroll, several of my fellow students who had been running Labre and its spin-off programs and I continued our commitments to our homeless friends and began to organize the Hospitality Center program and Homes-for-Less program under a new organization called the Metanoia Project.

Q. What have been some of your most rewarding moments in your community service work, and what it is that makes you so passionate about helping the homeless and improving neighborhoods?

Have you ever heard the song "Little Moments" by Brad Paisley? I love it, it's one of my favorites and it's all about living for the little moments in life that make it all worthwhile. Here's a short list of some of my favorites:

Labrepalooza 2007: Labrepalooza might have been one of the coolest things I have ever had the pleasure of being part of. In the summer of 2007, when I was still directing the Labre Project at JCU we threw a welcome back party for all the students who were returning for fall classes and had not seen their homeless friends all summer long. The idea was based on the "preferential option for the poor" which advocates that those "who are particularly vulnerable have a special moral claim on the community" and should be given a preference. Example: If you have a limited amount of food, then the poor should have it first, because they don't know when their next meal may be.

So with that philosophy in mind, we had a huge party for Labre, and went all out. Normally, JCU students visit the homeless where they live and bring a meal. For Labrepalooza we picked up our homeless friends and brought them to Edgewater Park and had a picnic on the Lake. There were about 70 students and 150 homeless who attended, it was a huge event. The menu: 150 steaks, 200 chicken breasts, hotdogs, hamburgers, and every side you could imagine. The day of the picnic it rained, actually there was a monsoon. But everyone was undeterred and in a great mood. When it was finally time to eat and the food was ready the homeless organized themselves and refused to eat until there was a proper blessing of the food. The prayer lasted nearly an hour! No one seemed to be in a rush and was thankful mainly for the company. That night I was standing out in the rain, in the dark, with the pavilion silhouetted against Lake Erie with everyone crammed into the pavilion and it was like a family reunion. There was a great aura of friendship and family ties coming from the pavilion that night and for that moment everything seemed right in the world.

"Giving" away Metanoia's First Home: Technically we "rent-to-own" and "owner finance" the sale of homes to previously homeless individuals but the goal is to keep the payments to an absolute minimum and cheaper than renting a home and to be as flexible as possible. The first home we decided to "give" to a husband and wife couple who I've known for seven years. They have been living under a railroad bridge for 2 years when we took them to their new house, told them about the opportunity, and gave them the keys. It was a great moment to have finally ended homelessness, forever, for 2 people.

Graduation 2008: When Mike and several other homeless friends of mine were at my graduation, really made me feel like they truly considered me part of their family.

There are many more seemingly insignificant moments which when told, might not appear to be quite as special but many are very special to me, and give me the energy and strength to carry on.

Q. Is there anything that your fellow students would be surprised to know about you?

Actually, I think some people may be surprised/don't know much about my work with the Metanoia Project...It's something I am just beginning to get comfortable talking with my peers about. For a long time the idea of the Metanoia Project has been a dream of mine, and now that it's a reality, I'm just not used to it yet. My work with the homeless started out more as a "hobby" and quickly snowballed. I like to joke that service (especially an experience like Labre) is the kind of stuff that "ruins you life." Meaning your life is changed forever - "ruined" for the better - after such a profound experience. I started out college as a biology major, I wanted to work with fish. Slowly as I got more and more drawn into my work/ "hobby" with the homeless, my major changed and so did my vocation.

Q. What other organizations, hobbies, interests, etc do you try to make time for?

Paintball and skiing - they are my seasonal hobbies/stress relief.

Every other summer I try to make time to go down to Oklahoma to participate in the Oklahoma D-Day. It's the world's largest paintball event, 4,000 people go and the game is framed in the historical Normandy Invasion. There is a lake and pontoon boats that look like landing craft. It's a week-long camping and paintballing adventure - a LOT of fun. This summer I won't be able to make it, too busy with Metanoia stuff...but there is always next year!

In the winter I ski (downhill). I'm a member of the National Ski Patrol (we are like EMT's on the snow) and try to Patrol at the local ski resort, Boston Mills, as much as I can. Unfortunately this winter I didn't have much time either.

Q. Is there anything else you would like to tell us about yourself?

Hmm... maybe just close with my favorite quote?

"Nothing is more practical than finding God, that is, than falling in Love in a quite absolute and final way. What you are in love with, what seizes your imagination, will affect everything. It will decide what will get you out of bed in the morning, what you do with your evenings, how you spend your weekends, what you read, who you know, what breaks your heart, and what amazes you with joy and gratitude. Fall in love, stay in love and it will decide everything."

-Pedro Arrupe, S.J.