ightwatch
OPERATION
March-April, 2010
Newsletter
Newsletter
FROM THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
When you open the envelope, you are met by the man’s sad eyes peering from a worn, grizzled face. You know immediately this is not someone from your social circle, not even someone you could imagine sharing the same room with, without feeling supremely uncomfortable. Beyond his weary face, you look at what he’s wearing: frayed and dirty clothes draped upon his slumped shoulders.
When you open the envelope, you are met by the man’s sad eyes peering from a worn, grizzled face. You know immediately this is not someone from your social circle, not even someone you could imagine sharing the same room with, without feeling supremely uncomfortable. Beyond his weary face, you look at what he’s wearing: frayed and dirty clothes draped upon his slumped shoulders.
Everything about the fellow’s appearance says, “Pity me.”
I hate it when I receive agency fundraising appeals that contain pictures like this. Even when I know they are agencies that ordinarily do good work, there’s something distasteful to me about using this approach of going about raising money. The pictures they use seem to have no more than this message: “Have a heart! Help a bum!” But not only is emphasizing the “bum-like” character of their clientele demeaning to the people they serve (encouraging all sorts of stereotypes), using their pictures in this way also feels queasily exploitive.
Our own experience is that the people we serve do not themselves hope to gain others’ pity; what they yearn for is that others simply respect them as fellow human beings.
Consequently, you’ll not see us sharing any pictures of our guests at their saddest and shabbiest. That’s not what Nightwatch is about. Nightwatch, through the hospitality and relationship-building we offer, is all about enkindling and celebrating the “spark of the Divine” that is within all of us, not matter what our condition or circumstances. Nightwatch’s first director, Gary Vaughn, was fond of a phrase that says it all: “I never saw a smiling face that wasn’t beautiful.” It’s the smiling face that serves as the icon for Nightwatch, not the forsaken and pitiable one.
So when we share pictures of our guests with you, they’ll not be kind (we hope) that emphasize their difference from you and me, but rather the kind that you could look at and say, “Why, that could be my aunt, my uncle, my sister or my brother. S/he could even be my friend!”
Gary L. Davis
