Good Help
It’s been quite a while since I’ve written anything here! How’s everybody holding up? Do you feel as though every day delivers some fresh new level of horror and existential overwhelm that’s enough to crush your soul but you just keep going anyway? Ugh, same!
Admittedly it’s been a challenge for me to stay in communication. Not just because we are living in terribly fraught times here in America, but also because after so many years of being in the highly-visible, hyper-social role of Restaurant Owner, you might say I felt the need to go into hiding. Almost three years post-restaurant I still identify as a “recovering” restaurateur.
Posing for a 303 Magazine article (click image for link) in 2016, in the alley behind the restaurant.
Although running a restaurant is just about the hardest thing I’ve ever done, I have to admit that sharing our story used to feel a lot easier in those days. (This is despite my tentative relationship with social media and the occasional agony of fielding bot-generated Yelp reviews or incendiary comments on social platforms.) The media love giving attention to restaurants! All I had to do was send a press release. And although my days were often packed with operational duties, we always had a slow day here and there when I could take more time to chat with guests, make the dough for my Salted Chocolate Chip cookies, and ask the folks in the kitchen to whip up their prettiest version of a particular dish so I could take pictures to share. Easy. Sometimes I was even able to carve out enough time to write a passionate opinion piece about fair wages for service workers or the plight of independent restaurants during the pandemic, or some equally fervent content about the virtues of Colorado-grown produce.
Out in the streets, bringing Giving Meals to our neighbors
In stark contrast, The Preservery Foundation operates out in the city streets, serving people who are not only unsheltered but also suffering from the trauma that inevitably results from being trapped in the cycle of poverty created by systemic oppression. The things we see out there aren’t at all pretty, and even the idea of “promoting” our organization often feels fraught to me. Figuring out how to tell our story while protecting the dignity and safety of the neighbors we serve has been daunting, as I have written about in the past (Our Invisible Work).
Two dear friends of mine, Rebekah Henderson and Lilah Park, are in a similar circumstance. I first got to know them after enjoying a screening of their inspiring political documentary, Running With My Girls, which was hosted by Denver Moms for Social Justice (DMSJ). Last year they created a beautiful documentary called Good Help. It’s a sad yet uplifting story about a bunch of social justice minded mamas, many from DMSJ, who stepped up to help when Denver was in crisis during the huge influx of Venezuelan newcomers. Remember when Mr. Rodgers told us to “look for the helpers”? This movie is about them and the people they served. People who witnessed injustice and decided to do something about it, however imperfectly.
It is estimated that around 40,000 people were bused here, to Colorado, after crossing the border from Mexico to Texas, of the millions who fled Venezuela due to the humanitarian crisis and economic collapse that our government shamefully helped to create. The film provides a sobering view of America’s anti-immigration policies in action and how they result in the outright abuse and disenfranchisement of newcomers who arrive here hoping for a better, safer future.
Rebekah and Lilah have felt conflicted about promoting their film because of the many vulnerable people whose experiences they captured. They spent countless hours editing their footage to conceal the identities of the most at-risk participants. They’ve shown the movie to just about every central character who makes an appearance, going above and beyond the standard practices of filmmakers, to ensure that folks are comfortable with how their story is told. And despite all this, knowing that anyone living in the US without documentation right now could be subjected to state-sponsored terror, they are only sharing their fundraising page with their personal networks and within supportive local communities like ours.
Rebekah asked me to participate in the film because of my involvement in DMSJ and our work through The Preservery Foundation, so I make a brief appearance in which I rant about how if America actually wanted to facilitate legal immigration, we would have intake systems and many other much-needed services to actually help newcomers instead of criminalizing them upon arrival. It was, and is, a particularly triggering issue for me because while so many people stepped up to help the newcomers, including the mayor of our fair city, the folks we serve who were already here and experiencing hunger and homelessness were still languishing. We criminalize poverty, too. Ultimately, the city’s response and the volunteer efforts were grossly insufficient to handle the huge influx of people and the help that was given was not always good, as the documentary shows. Yet people from all walks of life kept showing up and doing what they were able, giving what they could. For many families, that made all the difference in the world.
When Rebekah and Lilah invited me to a private screening for a handful of folks who appear in Good Help, we had a discussion afterwards about their need to raise money to actually finish and release the film. I jumped on the opportunity to help. Together we wrote content, shared the fundraising page in DMSJ and other trusted communities, planned a couple of small fundraising events, and Rebekah worked tirelessly to call people in her network, directly. For a couple months we had weekly Zoom meetings that often expanded into meaningful conversations about our work and lives. I realized, during one of our chats, that while I was encouraging them to promote their work I was actively ignoring my own advice. I was telling them that their film was important enough to put out there, that despite the risks it was a story that needed to be told. But I held the very same resistance in my own heart that they had in theirs.
Good intentions mean nothing without corresponding action. Yet even helpful action rooted in the best of intentions can go completely wrong. The outcome, ultimately, is never within our complete control. So how do we offer help that is actually helpful? In my experience so far, it is with complete dedication to the process. The fear of being imperfect cannot get in the way of doing your real work, however imperfectly. To be of selfless service we have to be detached from the fruits of our labor. Those who are dedicated to service work, especially those serving vulnerable people, are often plagued with the fear of unintentionally doing harm. I know I am. Yet however morally justified it may feel to abstain from action with the intention of avoiding harm, it is actually just a way for us to stay in hiding rather than allowing ourselves and our work to be seen.
So, in honor of the work we are doing at The Preservery Foundation, inspired by my courageously creative friends, I am cautiously coming out of hiding in the hopes that I can connect with our community again and continue to do our work, imperfectly and authentically. I’m going to keep writing and sharing our story in the hopes that we can build empathy and compassion towards our unhoused neighbors. We need to continuously raise money in order to keep delivering good, wholesome food to the people living in our community who need it most, and we just can’t do that if our work stays in the silent shadows of the city streets.
The first tent encampment we served back in 2020, just half a block away from where The Preservery stood.
I hope you will consider supporting this inspiring film (link to donation page which also includes a trailer, below) and I will keep our followers posted when it is finally ready for public view. We are so grateful to all our donors, volunteers, and followers and look forward to putting our energy into staying connected with you. We are so much better together!
Visit their pledge page here: Good Help The Film Needs Your Help!
