‘Peace House Community Journal’ Archives
A Hopeful Sign
from the series Peace House Community - A Place to Belong By MARTI MALTBY Marti Maltby Like many people in this part of Minneapolis, I am continually reminded of the challenges facing our neighborhoods. High crime rates, limited resources, livability, crimes, drug use… you know the list as well as I do. Aside from my personal observations, I hear about the challenges the members at Peace House Community deal with every day. I also attend meetings hosted by the Metro Urban Indian Directors (MUID), which works to combat the homelessness and opioid epidemics in the local Native American community. As you might expect, most of what I hear about conditions on the street and in the encampments is pretty depressing. I realized this week how cynical I have become because of these issues, but it was actually some good news that brought this to my attention. Dawn LaRoque of the Minnesota Indian Women’s Resource Center spoke of changes she has started seeing as a result of [...]
Something to Offer
from the series Peace House Community- A Place to Belong By MARTI MALTBY Marti Maltby Like many social service organizations, Peace House Community relies on volunteers to achieve its goals. Those who donate their time and, more importantly, their talents enrich the experience of our community when they come to our building. I am always thankful for our volunteers, and I knew we have added several services lately as new volunteers have joined us, but it wasn’t until a week or two ago that I grasped just how much goes on here because of volunteers. If I look only at what our volunteers do directly with the community members, the list reads: HaircutsHand massagesManicuresArt projectsWood carving classesWriters groupBlood pressure checksBicycle repairNeck and back massagesLive music during lunchMaintaining our gardenHave normal conversations with our members. This list doesn’t include the behind the scenes work of our volunteers, like sorting donations and maintaining [...]
Embracing Failure
from the series Peace House Community- A Place to Belong By MARTI MALTBY Marti Maltby “Anything worth doing is worth doing poorly at first. It’s worth doing poorly many times until you get good at it.”-Paul Tracy (or maybe it was Zig Ziglar, I can’t remember which) “Go on failing. Go on. Only next time, try to fail better.”-Samuel Beckett As someone who grew up receiving a fair amount of criticism when I failed (one of the byproducts of being compared to two exceptionally gifted brothers). I often try to protect myself from failure. Maybe it would be more precise to say that, when I fail, I make sure I have my excuses ready. I’ve learned that no one can completely avoid failure. Life will sometimes require us to do things we aren’t that skilled at doing, and we won’t be able to do it well enough. That may not technically be a failure, but as I grew up, it felt like it was. It took a long time for me to realize that avoiding my failures didn’t do [...]
