Skip to main content

Email from Norm Fadness, L&F Board VP, but not representing board, re homeless paying for their upkeep

I thought I would post on this blog an email I received last May from Norm Fadness, who identified himself as Loaves & Fishes' "Board Vice President," and CC'ed the whole of the board, but then wrote "Disclaimer: This comment does not represent an official position of Loaves & Fishes."

Seems pretty feckless on Norm's part, if you asked me.

Following is Norm's email and my response.

  fromNormand Fadness

toTom Armstrong email

ccRudy Ahumada ,
Libby Fernandez ,
Kelly Tanalepy ,
Kathleen Kelly ,
Karen Banker ,
Jim Peth ,
Gerrie Baskerville ,
"Dorothy R. Smith" ,
Don Fado ,
David Moss ,
Chris & Dan Delany ,
Bob Pinkerton

dateTue, May 25, 2010 at 7:46 AM

subjectToday's Bee article

mailed-byfrontiernet.net

Greetings Tom

I was just wondering if when you are not spending time bashing Loaves & Fishes in your "blog" if you signed up for work at the Food Bank to help pay for your upkeep?

Norm Fadness
Board Vice-President

Disclaimer: This comment does not represent an official position of Loaves & Fishes.

Reply
Tom Armstrong to Normand, Rudy, Libby, Kelly, Kathleen, Karen, Jim, Gerrie, Dorothy, Don, David, Chris, Bob

show details May 25

Normand,

I learned this morning that Foodlink [not Food Bank] had 'lost' eight of its employees that Jim Peth gathered for Allen at Foodlink to work for that charitable organization.

This was an almost-unique situation where jobs were not being funnelled to SafeGround people. Indeed Allen did an end-around (as I understand it), going to Jim rather than through top administration, to get hard workers. It was also more-that-nice that employees weren't being selected for ideological reasons.

I am a hard worker and would be delighted to work for Foodlink. But if I did so, I would not be making donations to Loaves & Fishes. Until Loaves & Fishes properly represents itself, including its political activities, to donors, I don't believe donors to the charity understand what they are contributing to.

Loaves & Fishes refuses to give up its national revolution activities, I'll call it -- synonymous with the Safe Ground Movement -- which I believe would be repulsive to the great majority of donors, if they knew about it.

As you may not know, Normand, I had been volunteering for Wash House. Right now, they have a surfeit of volunteers. Also, I volunteer to work in the kitchen at Union Gospel Mission much more often than I am required to.

But I am very much in favor of homeless people organizing themselves, through the mayor's Volunteer Tsar, such that we can do more to contribute to our upkeep, as you call it.

BTW, Normand, a great many of the Christians in the homeless-help industry provide for the poor for Biblical reasons, relating to good works they are motivated to do because of their faith. They are not looking to the poor for upkeep payback.

— Tom Armstrong


Fadness, nor anyone else, responded, either officially or unofficially, to my email.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Loaves & Fishes implicates Buddhism and Jack Kornfield in its June Donations Plea.

The Sukhothai Traimit Golden Buddha was found in a clay-and-plaster overlaid buddha statue in 1959, after laying in wait for 500 years. It's huge and heavy: just under 10 feet tall and weighs 5 1/2 tons. At the beginning of their June newsletter , Loaves and Fishes relates a story, taken from the beginning of renowned Buddhist teacher Jack Kornfield's 2008 book The Wise Heart: A Guide to the Universal Teachings of Buddhist Psychology . The first part and first chapter in Kornfield's book is "Part I: Who are you really?" and chapter 1 is called "Nobility: Our Original Goodness," which ought to serve as a clue to what the beginning of the book is about, not that that sentiment isn't strewn through-out the chapter, section and book such that what Kornfield is telling us should be crystal clear. Somehow, the not-ready-for-primetime management at Loaves & Fishes have managed to use Kornfield's wise and kindly words in a way that mangles th...

In an act of Collective Punishment, Loaves & Fishes closes its park in the morning on New Year’s Day

Calvin [a "green hat" in Unfriendly Park] makes the argument for continued incompetent management. Hobbes represents me — only, in real life, I don't have that good a coat . In an act of Collective Punishment, Loaves & Fishes closes its park in the morning on New Year’s Day In one respect — and only one — that I can think of, Loaves & Fishes is NOT hypocritical: The management hates the way America is run and wants to turn it into a backward communist country . Consistent with that, Loaves & Fishes’ management runs its facility like a backward communist country. The People’s Republic of Loaves & Fishes. A seemingly minor thing happened on New Year’s Day. A couple of people smoked a joint in Loaves & Fishes’ Friendship Park and one of the park directors, or both of them, determined, at about 10am, that, in retribution, they would punish all the homeless there by closing the park for the day. This is something the managers of the park do all the ...

Sex, Lies and Exegesis

Definition: exegesis [ek-si-jee-sis]: critical explanation or interpretation of a text or portion of a text, especially of the Bible. Painting by He Qi , a prominent artist from China who focuses on Christian themes. This piece is inspired by The Song of Solomon. In his May 21 column, New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof stirred up a hornets’ nest. His column wasn’t really a column, it was a quiz, titled “ Religion and Sex Quiz .” The questions and what he provided as the answers were provocative, to say the least. We would later learn, in his follow-up, a post to the Times online in the afternoon of the same day, “ Reader Comments on my Religion Quiz ,” that the information that was used to create the quiz came with the help of Bible scholars, “including Jennifer Knust, whose book inspired [the quiz], and … Mark Jordan of Harvard Divinity School.” Kristof doesn’t name Knust’s book, but a quick googling reveals that it must certainly be Unprotected Texts: The Bible’s...