|
 Meet
Mary Jo Copeland
The people on the streets of Minneapolis call her their "street
mother." City officials call her "an extraordinary leader"
and an "urban saint." But Mary Jo Copeland, the founder
and director of Sharing and Caring Hands, is not looking for praise.
She knows from experience what it is to live in poverty and brokenness
and she is striving to make the world a better place for the poor
today.
Copeland's startup of Sharing and Caring is all the more remarkable
given her painful past. She grew up in a family where her parents
fought constantly and her emotionally disturbed father often beat
her mother. Mary Jo was an emotionally deprived and socially dysfunctional
child whom other children made fun of because they didn't understand.
Her self-esteem was almost nonexistent, like that of many other
people she helps today. But someone made a difference in her life
and her goal is to do the same for others - to bring relief and
love and dignity to poverty stricken people.
Mary
Jo Copeland - Biography
October
23, 1942 - Born in Rochester, Minnesota
June
1960 - Graduated from Holy Angels Academy.
April
1961 - Married Dick Copeland, a DeLaSalle graduate and
St.Thomas College student.
1961-1981
- Had 12 children (6 boys and 6 girls) and was a full time mother
until the youngest child began school
1981-1985
- Volunteer at Catholic Charities, working with the poor and hurting
of our society. Started the 28 church Branch Lunch Line and was
recognized for her efforts with the 11 Who Care Award .
1985
- Started Sharing and Caring Hands, a volunteer organization,
with few salaries and no bureaucracy. Money and donations go directly
to the needs of the poor. Sharing and Caring Hands is a vehicle
for concerned people to get directly involved in helping meet
the needs for the less fortunate of our society.
1995
- Built Mary's Place , a beautiful $7.5 million Transitional Housing
apartment complex, born out of love, compassion, and concern for
women and children in poverty. This building was made possible
through private donations alone. It was named in honor of the
Virgin Mary. It was expanded to 92 units in 2000 at a cost of
$6 million and now houses over 500 people, most of them children.
1997
- Built a new $5 million, 27,000 square-foot Sharing and Caring
Hands facility that serves the needs of over 1,000 people each
day.
1998
- Converted the old Sharing and Caring Hands building
into a Children's Activity Center and Teen Center for the kids
living at Mary's Place.
1985
to Present -Sharing and Caring Hands grew from a small
volunteer organization with a $5,000 a month budget working
out
of a 2,000 square-foot storefront, to a large volunteer organization
that spends over $400,000 a month on the needs of over 20,000
people who come through our doors monthly. This work is now
being
done out of three buildings, worth $19 million, totaling 140,000
square-feet owned by Sharing and Caring Hands located on the
edge
of downtown Minneapolis. Mary Jo has never taken a salary.
Became
an accomplished public speaker spreading the message of unconditional
love and sensitizing the world to the plight of the poor while
challenging them to make a difference. Was recognized during this
time in many television stories and newspaper and magazine articles
, including those in Readers Digest, Good Housekeeping, People,
and New York Times magazine.
Received
many awards and commendations, including being named One of the
most Caring People in America by the Caring Institute in Washington,
D.C., the Norman Vincent Peale Unsung Hero Award , the David Prues
Outstanding Leadership Award, and the Pax Christi Award for living
the life that Jesus taught.
Was
named Person of the Week on NBC's nightly news with Peter Jennings,
was featured on Tom Brokow's America Close Up, and was a featured
speaker at the 2001 Prayer Breakfast in Washington D.C.
Currently
- Director of Sharing and Caring Hands and Mary's Place working
daily with the needs of the poor. She speaks to many groups and
parishes during the year.
Download
Audio
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Here to download an mp3 of Mary Jo speaking!
Sharing and Caring Hands
A Compassionate Response to the Needs of the Inner City Poor
A Short History
by
Sue Anne W. Kirkham
Sweet-faced, soft-spoken,
motherly; her eyes welling up as she speaks of her magnificent
obsession with saying “yes” to
God: It is difficult to imagine Mary Jo Copeland as the powerhouse
who defied the Establishment and climbed right over conventional
wisdom to grow a multi-million-dollar outreach to the poor
from the seedling of a $2200.00 cash award. But watch her energetically
lead a tour through the multi-level buildings of the safety
net organization she established in 1985 - never losing track
of an incoming cell phone call or a child wandering away from
his mother - and disbelief quickly evaporates.
“
If you see something that needs to be done, do it. Be Jesus’ hands,
His heart, His feet, His mouth,”1 she advises, and
it is advice that grounds the mission of the Sharing and
Caring Hands resource center as it serves the basic needs
of thousands of people each month, and of the adjacent Mary’s
Place residence, which provides sparkling clean temporary
apartments for ninety-two families.
Officially, the
guiding principal behind this effort to help those who get
sifted through the gaping cracks in the welfare
system is a dedication “to the proposition that the community
can make a difference in the lives of others though volunteerism,
donations, and commitment, and that this can be accomplished
without creating an expensive bureaucracy that saps the resources
necessary to carry out its vision and achieve its goals,” and
without any government funding. “Be a positive presence
in the world,” Mary Jo tells both volunteers and clients. “Make
the world a better place because you’re in it.”2
This surprisingly
upbeat take on things is the key to how a reclusive mother
of twelve with a troubled childhood of her
own developed into the person the local press has dubbed “Minnesota’s
Mother Theresa.” Mary Jo Copeland identifies with the
abandoned because, following a few sheltered years in her grandparents’ comfortable
home during her father’s World War II military service,
she was abruptly uprooted and replanted into a chaotic household
at the age of six. Dominated by a mentally ill father who physically
abused her mother and emotionally abused his children, her
new surroundings offered little security and even less encouragement.
She recalls spending countless nights cowering in the corner
of her bedroom, trying to be invisible, just praying that the
violence between her parents would end, and being told repeatedly
that she would never amount to anything.
“If children grow up being told that they are limited,
then they certainly will be,” Mary Jo would later say.
But in this setting, she came to know firsthand the results
of neglect and dysfunction, often going hungry and unbathed
and being ostracized by her classmates for being “different.”
So how does this
modest woman, who - emulating Christ’s
loving attitude - washes the feet of the street-weary people
she greets at Sharing and Caring Hands, feel about being compared
to Calcutta’s “Saint of the Gutters”? “Well,
I’m not her, of course, and it’s humbling,” she
says. “But if [that kind of attention] gets people to
think about what one person can do, how they can serve others,
then it’s a good thing.” Mary Jo also is quick
to credit her early churchgoing experiences in her grandmother’s
home as being the foundation of her transformation from neglected
child to depression-haunted homemaker to community activist. “And
prayer, always prayer.” As Michelle Lynne Peterson says
in her biography of Mary Jo, Great Love, “She prays daily
for the strength to leave her childhood grief behind her and
for the ability to conduct her life with the grace that God
gave her.”3
It was this devotion
to her faith and her firm belief that prayer is the ultimate
answer to society’s failures that
led her out of the realm of conventional volunteerism and into
the challenging world of entrepreneurial benefaction. Having
been rescued from the intolerable conditions in her own home
by a sensitive priest who helped her relocate to a foster family
in her teens, and then finding some peace and security in her
marriage to high school sweetheart Dick Copeland, she had committed
herself fully to being a loving parent to “as many children
as God gave us.” She only ventured out of her home reluctantly
at the age of 38, when the last of her twelve children started
school.
Then, finding herself
panicked at the notion of having a few free hours on her
hands, she accepted Dick’s encouragement
to learn to drive and to apply her gift of a loving spirit
to whatever cause she found worthy and needful. “You’ve
got more love in your heart than anyone I’ve ever known.
You have to go out and share yourself with the world,”4
he told her. The first step in training for her new vocation
was accepting a volunteer position at Catholic Charities’ Branch
II outreach program (the Branches) in downtown Minneapolis,
but it wasn’t long before her free and loving spirit
rebounded from the rigid strictures in place at even this casually
operated drop-in center for vagrants, where a daily supply
of “coffee and stale donuts” was the central attraction.
Mary Jo shocked the tenured gatekeepers at Branch II when
she joined their ranks in 1982. She engaged street-hardened
visitors in personal conversation, and gave out items from
the food shelf after its official 3:30 p.m. closing time; she
handed out a few dollars from her own pocket to a melancholy
man whose wife had been moved to a nursing home. Her fellow
volunteers had accepted the conditions of restricted access
to limited supplies of donated clothing and food and were comfortable
with the sparse help they were able to offer in the way of
referrals to community service programs.
What they weren’t comfortable with was Mary Jo’s
unconventional approach of individualizing the attention she
gave each new arrival. “When someone is drowning, you
don’t throw them a life-preserver, you get into the water
with them,” she would respond. But soon their reports
of her unorthodox behavior generated warning letters from the
higher-ups at Catholic Charities. Still, Mary Jo continued
her quest to expand the center’s resources and to better
meet the needs of the indigent. Noting a dreadful lack of good
nutrition, she ignored the directive to “go through proper
channels,” and personally recruited enough volunteers
from local churches to prepare and serve a luncheon meal at
Branch II.
More letters of reprimand followed, but the Catholic Charities
hierarchy was stymied: This boat-rocker was doing some good,
but she was a loose cannon. Meanwhile, Mary Jo continued to
serve the poor in her own way, giving out clothing and food
from the trunk of her car before starting her volunteer shift.
The final blow to the tenuous relationship between the two
warring philosophies came in the form of a disagreement over
policy. This devout woman was told that she could not, due
to rules and regulations imposed by sponsorship from the United
Way, give Thanks before the noon meal. She lost the argument,
but said the prayers anyway.
“Where there’s hungry people, God said feed them
and love them,” she told a reporter for the National
Catholic Bulletin in November of 1983. And to those in charge,
she explained that the people who visited the outreach center
hungered for more than just food. But the affronts to authority
were too unsettling and, after two-and-a-half years, she was
told that her presence at the Branches was “no longer
permitted.”
At the same time,
she was chosen to receive an “11 Who
Care” award from a Twin Cities news program. Undaunted
by rejection and armed with a good idea of what did and didn’t
work, she took the small cash award from that honor and set
out to help others on her own terms. With no formal plan and
based on her husband’s personal guarantee, she signed
the lease on a small storefront property on Glenwood Avenue
in Minneapolis and started operations in the spring of 1985. “I’ll
just open the doors and see what they need, and I’ll
help them,” she told Dick.
Based on that simple but elegant philosophy, and assisted
by several disgruntled volunteers who had jumped ship following
her dismissal from the Branches, Mary Jo opened those doors
to Sharing and Caring Hands on a shoestring. With full confidence
that God would transform that slender strand of twine into
a steel cable, she began to offer services based on the unique
perspective that everyone is placed on earth for a purpose.
Her outreach experience had taught her that people often need
assistance in getting past their pain in order to discover
that purpose, but she had seen staggering changes made in the
lives of many who had not, at first, been capable of helping
themselves.
Also unique to the
Sharing and Caring Hands approach was an emphasis on making
a personal connection to individuals in
need. “Kindness is a conversion. Your smile and outstretched
hand are the beginning of a miracle,” she often says. “Be
bread broken and given … wine poured and shared. We must
not be reservoirs that store up, we must be vessels that pour
out.” In that spirit, Mary Jo and a now-burgeoning team
of fellow volunteers started the “washing of the feet” tradition
that has become emblematic of their overall mission. “It’s
what I am called to do,” quotes Margaret Nelson in her
book Saving Body and Soul: The Mission of Mary Jo Copeland. “To
touch the poor, to get on my knees to them.”5 And to
the ones she serves in this manner she says, “Look after
your feet; they must carry you a long way in this world and
then all the way to the kingdom of God.”
But the washing
ritual, in addition to symbolizing Christ’s
love, was also a response to the very real physical privation
of those whose feet had indeed carried them far already - and
often in the same pair of split and ragged, broken-down shoes.
And it was most certainly an example of tailoring the ministrations
to the circumstances, rather than to a predetermined set of
organizational guidelines. But while inspiration is a beautiful
thing, there were practical needs for cash flow that couldn’t
be ignored.
In order to raise
funds for her new operation, Mary Jo wrote letters to all
of the churches with which she had previously
worked and lined up speaking engagements with local congregations
and social groups. In a blaze of true missionary zeal fired
by her passion for the cause, she had discovered an unknown
talent for public speaking that proved to be essential to the
survival of Sharing and Caring Hands. More teaching than preaching
and delivered straight from the heart, these speaking forays
humanized for the greater public the faces of the downtrodden
in their midst and achieved results beyond the wildest imaginings
of everyone involved. They also backed up Mary Jo Copeland’s
assertion that once people knew of the need, God would move
their hearts.
Through these fund-raising campaigns, Sharing and Caring Hands
was able to improve the storefront facilities, adding shower
rooms for those with no home base; plentiful clothing donations
filled to capacity the basement level; a new kitchen could
be installed to meet the growing demand; there was ample money
in the coffers to help get people off the streets and into
apartments; and the career transients now had access to vouchers
for rooms at the local YMCA.
In its first two
years, the fledging organization had raised $240,000.00 in
cash and an equal amount in donated time, services,
food, and goods, and had met its goal of bringing relief and
love and dignity to poverty-stricken people in the community.
But with increased success came increased scrutiny. Critics
feared that Sharing and Caring Hands was simply attracting
vagrants to the neighborhood, and then enabling them to continue
in their “shiftlessness.” But, as Peterson notes,
what Mary Jo and her crew were actually doing was “rounding
them up from behind nearby dumpsters and bushes and bridges
and giving them a refuge and a measure of hope.”6
Mary Jo maintained
her focus, and her conviction that “we
are here to do God’s will.” The people whose opinions
really mattered were standing right beside her - doing dishes
and scrubbing floors; sorting clothing and making sandwiches;
serving 150-200 people a day - and they could see clearly both
the help that was being provided and the growing challenge.
Then came the news that the site they had called home for over
two years was to be razed for construction of the Target Center
basketball arena. This time around they were determined to
purchase a property in order to buy security for the program.
That firm resolve
served well, as the hunt for a new location presented intimidating
financial obstacles. The ideal building
- located squarely on the bus line at Seventh Street and Fourth
Avenue in downtown Minneapolis, and offering plenty of space
for the overflowing clientele - was listed at $240,000.00,
and would still require $160,000.00 in renovations and a zoning
variance. Stepping out in faith, Mary Jo and Dick signed a
purchase agreement. Only then did they lay out a plan to fund
the purchase - applying the savvy acquired from experience
and pragmatically exploiting Mary Jo’s newfound stature
as a leader in community service. When she laced up her trademark
tennis shoes and hit the speaking circuit with both feet churning,
local press outlets took notice.
Fran Roth, writing
for the Catholic Bulletin in 1987, gives dramatic examples
of lives salvaged through the resource center’s
efforts and defines the specific need in dollars and cents,
in order to continue its work. “[But] the poor are not
numbers or a business,” Mary Jo told Roth. “They
are hearts and souls.” Next, the same Channel 11 KARE
TV that had recognized her work with Catholic Charities aired
a one-our documentary entitled No Permanent Address. And both
the Minneapolis Star and the Saint Paul Pioneer Press had latched
onto her cause, running sympathetic stories to promote it.
Throughout the sometimes
nerve-wracking period of waiting for God to move hearts,
Mary Jo and her staff of volunteers
continued to pray, but also worked harder than ever. “Don’t
pray too long, you’ll get it wrong,” she tells
others who find themselves feeling stuck and helpless. “We
must move from prayer to action.” And soon the public,
too, began to move to action with financial support and other
donations.
Her prayers were
being answered, but even more extraordinary ripples would
soon emanate from the whirl of favorable publicity
as it pulled in the attention of - and a visit from - the president
and vice president of Minnesota’s largest philanthropic
organization, the McKnight Foundation. While an elegantly clothed
3M heiress and a business-suited Episcopal minister may have
seemed out of place amidst the crowds of homeless people toting
the entirety of their possessions in plastic trash bags, the
Foundation’s stated goal of improving the quality of
life “for present and future generations” was a
heaven-made match to the Sharing and Caring Hands mission.
Before the representatives
from McKnight left that cold winter day, a number of things
had happened: They had toured the site
and learned about the expanding population of those who needed
help getting their lives on track; Mary Jo had prayed with
them; she had hugged them. And when they walked out the front
door, they had left behind a pledge granting Sharing and Caring
Hands the $40,000.00 it needed for the down payment on the
new property … and an additional $100,000.00 for building
improvements and operational costs. The safety net had been
reinforced, and Mary Jo and Dick were well situated to proceed
with the planned three-fold expansion.
This windfall was
manna to the outreach center’s supporters
and volunteers, but with time running short and others expressing
skepticism that Sharing and Caring Hands might be taking on
more than it could handle, there was reason to keep scrambling.
To those who asked for assurance that the success of the new
venture would parallel that of the former, Mary Jo Copeland
responded with optimism tempered by realism: “If God
wants it to be [successful], then it will be.”7 But she
was also committed to kindling in those who have much, a desire
to give a bit of it to those who have little.
For this purpose,
she relied on coverage of the McKnight Foundation grants
and accompanying photo footage for the “face-to-face” exposure
that softens hearts and opens minds. By the time they were
scheduled to move, an additional $200,000.00 in individual
and corporate donations had found its way into the Sharing
and Caring Hands mailbox.
By January of 1987
the small nonprofit venture had $450,000.00 in equity and
the City of Minneapolis had reluctantly approved
the application for the necessary zoning variance. But this
Copeland juggernaut represented a new breed of independent
thinking and some radical approaches to resolving inner city
social problems - a domain many elected officials had come
to believe they owned. It made them nervous. They weren’t
about to allow its blip of activity to wander off their radar
screen.
Relieved just to
be able to get settled in, Mary Jo and crew accepted the
tentative blessing of City approval and proceeded
to gut, renovate, and rebuild their new home. All of the services
would be continued, but on a much grander scale. The Seventh
Street building’s new lower level comfortably held a
large clothing area with floor-to-ceiling shelves and an ample
shower room; a main floor dining space accommodated oversize
cafeteria tables, a full commercial kitchen, and a separate
room for distribution of food shelf items; a private area could
now be designated for foot-soaking; and at last, there was
a bit of office space for Mary Jo and two administrative volunteers.
Within months of
its opening, the new building was being used past its capacity.
The showers were running in shifts due to
overcrowding and a morning meal was added to ease the squeeze
of finding everyone a seat at a table. Then the downtown YMCA
stopped renting out rooms. Adding urgency to necessity was
the phenomenon of the “nouveau poor” who were flowing
into overloaded social service programs - those who had buried
themselves in easily acquired consumer debt during the boom
years, and were now displaced by bankruptcy and foreclosure
in unprecedented numbers. These, and the faces of a new generation
of homeless: women and children who had left abusive relationships
behind, but didn’t know what step to take next. And as
always, there were the lost souls, sucked into a chemically
dependent lifestyle, whose offspring had inherited the pain
and the hopelessness that had engulfed them since birth. “I
try not to judge people,” Mary Jo says of this specific
problem, “but these children are suffering, they’re
being left behind, and we have to do something.”
Part of the “something” that
Sharing and Caring Hands had to do was to spend twice as
much as was budgeted
on medical care and an additional $8,000.00 on motel rooms
the first month after the Y shut down its room rental program.
The contrast between this Little Mission That Could and its
slow-grinding government counterparts now became clearer than
ever: rather than cut back on services or close down programs,
they set out to resolve the problem of overspending their resources.
But the only solution
was to expand - a prohibitively expensive proposition in
light of their current budget overruns. To double
the size of the property, adding 4,000 square feet and dental
and medical clinics, would cost a whopping $450,000.00. Mary
Jo’s husband Dick argued against taking on so much additional
liability after only two years in the new building. “What
was I supposed to do,” Mary Jo recalls asking him at
the time, “tell all those people ‘I’m sorry,
it’s too soon for me to help you’?” The project
went forward.
“You have to follow what God leads you to do,” says
the Sharing and Caring Hands director today. “Where there
is a need, God will always provide the increase in resources
to fill that need. How else can you explain it?”
And for those whose
faith was tethered to more earthly considerations, Mary Jo’s continual presence and involvement in the program
provided reassurance. Part of that involvement has always been
her willingness to do the hard work required to keep things
clean and organized - two qualities she cites as essential
to keeping the gears well-oiled, whether in a charitable organization
or a household of fourteen. As client-turned volunteer, Antonio,
tells author Peterson, “If you want to find Mary Jo Copeland,
roll up your sleeves and start scrubbin’. She’ll
show up right along side you.”
Doubters were further
reassured in December of 1989 when the approach of Christmas
delivered the gift of a surge in donations:
Toys and games; food and clothing; volunteer hours. One lone
soul driving home from work, nudged by the good intentions
he’d been nursing ever since hearing of Sharing and Caring
Hands, turned his car around and made a donation of $10,000.00
on the spot, never having set foot on the premises before.
When news of these acts reached local media outlets, the resulting
coverage yielded a tripling of cash donations. This godsend
left them flush enough to replenish their overspent budget,
pay for the cost of the new building project, and bank the
cost of operations for the next year.
With the expansion
in progress, founder Mary Jo Copeland was accumulating honorary
degrees, leadership awards from religious
groups, recognition as Entrepreneur of the Year from weighty
financial firms, and “Most Caring People in America” status
from the National Caring Institute, but this was attention
she wanted to reflect back to the causes she cherishes. During
her visit to a posh Washington reception to accept this latter
honor, she recalls asking herself, “How did I get here?
I’m just the foot-washer!”8 But the accolades brought
her into elbow-rubbing proximity with the kinds of movers and
shakers who make things happen for humble non-profit organizations,
and with Marion Laboratories founder Ewing Kauffman of the
Students Taught Awareness and Resistance program seated beside
her, she started to see the Providence in eating dinner 1,000
miles away from home.
Kauffman was being
honored for contributing half his wealth to fund incentives
toward educational achievement and away
from self-destructive activities, and he was a friend of Minnesota
Twins owner, Carl Pohlad. Mary Jo Copeland left Washington
with a figurative “letter of introduction” to this
local legend that would prove helpful to her future plans for
Sharing and Caring Hands, which was again seeing an explosion
of need. The first year of the Seventh Street operation required
$50,000.00 in temporary lodging expenditures for the homeless,
and by the end of 1992 - a mere three years later - more than
$300,000.00 was spent on hotel rooms alone.
Once again, according
to Michelle Lynne Peterson’s account,
the Copelands were stunned by the ever-expanding need. “I
could build my own hotel for what we’re spending,” Mary
Jo told Dick when that 1992 total was presented to her. And
after a pause, she said, “Now that I think about it …” Dick’s
response? “Uh-oh.”9 But “act as if it were
impossible to fail” would have been an apt motto for
the supporters and staff of the now-flourishing Sharing and
Caring Hands, and the resource center for the inner city poor
had a rich history of ramming through roadblocks.
This time around,
the roadblocks were made of different stuff. Mary Jo had
been eyeing the weed-infested property right next
door to the lot they already owned; its purchase would be the
answer to their expansion needs. Another non-profit had let
lapse their option to buy, and the property owners were asking
$1.5 million for the neglected five-acre space - twice Sharing
and Caring Hands’ then-current investment, before any
buildings were even constructed. With defeat staring them down,
Mary Jo Copeland dusted off that introduction to Carl Pohlad.
Dressed in denim, she first marched into the lush corporate
offices of banking mogul Pohlad, and then eventually connected
with other entrepreneurs in his network, explaining the great
need she found at her doorstep and her “one soul at a
time” approach to the problem. Some of the fatter cats
required more intense stroking, but eventually, the product
sold itself.
Having succeeded
in getting financing for the land, Mary’s
Place Shelter (named after the Virgin Mary) was etched out
in cyanotype on the architect’s drafting board. But now
there was City Hall to fight. After six months of tedious meetings,
and despite the fact that their blueprints met the M1 zoning
requirements, the City decided to slap a conditional use stipulation
on the property. City planners explained that they were considering
changing the property’s zoning, and declined to approve
the application for a building permit.
Warned of the risk
that Sharing and Caring Hands could lose money and backing,
Mary Jo was determined to provide a safe
place for children in need. Buoyed by the depth and strength
and resilience of her own incredible personal faith, she took
on the role of David to this formidable bureaucratic Goliath. “Grace
fills the prayerful,” she says in reflecting back to
those days, but she also retains some disgust for the time
and energy drained by endless meetings with government entities,
inveighing, “You shouldn’t have to fight government
[in order] to do the right thing for people.”
But fight she did,
even as City Council members told the press that it was pointless
for Sharing and Caring Hands to oppose
their dictates. In response, Peterson recounts, Mary Jo Copeland
made her own announcement to the press: she intended to build
a $6.5 million shelter for the homeless “as soon as the
Minneapolis City Council agreed to let her get those mothers
and children out from under bridges and from sleeping in the
back seats of cars.”10
City Council members beckoned her to their offices for yet
more meetings, but Mary Jo declined, instead stepping up fundraising
efforts and ensuring that construction planning continued on
schedule. When even her own lawyer advised her to compromise,
she was forced to resolve the standoff by filing suit against
the City.
The kind of grit displayed by the Copelands and Sharing and
Caring Hands made friends as well as enemies, and in his May
23, 1993, column for the Saint Paul Pioneer Press, Joe Soucheray
warns the City of Minneapolis that they are wasting taxpayer
dollars trying to force skids under an immovable object.
“Look,” he writes, “it might be this simple:
These characters who populate City Hall in Minneapolis have
never been up against anybody like [Mary Jo Copeland]. They
do not have a clue what lies in store for them … I actually
feel a little sorry for these politicians who think they can
quiet this human storm with language of codes and ordinances
and zoning … Copeland wants to build a beautiful new
residence for poor people in downtown Minneapolis. She intends
to do this privately. This is such novel thinking that the
politicians should be washing Copeland’s feet … Possibly
the concept is so novel to lifetime bureaucrats that they are
confused by having been left out of the process.”
As this confused body held out against the growing public
perception that that they were inexplicably opposed to Good
Works, their arguments that this was a bad location for a shelter
provided cover for a history of oral promises made to favored
commercial developers. But Sharing and Caring Hands owned the
property, and Mary Jo needed to get on with using it to best
advantage, so she announced her own news conference.
When one member of the press showed up with cameras, touted
the services being offered at Sharing and Caring Hands, and
gave out telephone numbers for Council members, other reporters
climbed aboard. Harassed Council members began experiencing
various types of epiphanies, and soon the dance was over. Construction
at last got the green flag.
Today, at 65, directing
Sharing and Caring Hands is still a full-time, unpaid job
for Mary Jo Copeland, who conducts
the intake interviews for every applicant for emergency housing
at Mary’s Place Shelter and greets every client entering
the resource center. “I’ll retire in heaven,” she
says.
Twenty-two years
into its ministry to the poor, Sharing and Caring Hands exists
as a tried and tested vehicle for volunteer
commitment and spends only six percent of all money collected
on administrative costs and fundraising. Over $300,000.00 is
spent monthly providing on-site health and dental care, help
with rental deposits, supplemental groceries, three hot meals
a day, and clothing to over 20,000 individuals. A small paid
staff supervises activities at Mary My Hope Teen Center and
Children’s Center, and maintains the grounds of the Mary’s
Place Shelter in pristine condition so that the environment
is uplifting, providing peace and structure and hope to the
ninety-two families it houses for two-to-six month stays.
“Give people a chance to rest their spirit,” Mary
Jo explains. “Then miracles happen.” Miracles indeed
happen for residents, who are assisted in laying out a structured
plan for seeking permanent housing and securing jobs. Seeing
this occur on a regular basis keeps Mary Jo and her staff of
over 1,000 volunteers encouraged and sustained.
Mary Jo Copeland
credits God for her stamina and the success of this outreach. “No one human being could have managed
all this,”11 agrees son Mark. And she credits Dick for
being her “Saint Joseph,” and taking good care
of her. But did the naysayers ever succeed in deflating her
spirits? “You can’t pay attention, can’t
let them get to you. It just drains you of energy better spent
serving others,” she says. “And there are so many
opportunities to serve. In the end, the only thing we take
with us is what we give away.”
1Margaret Nelson and Keri Pickett, Saving Body and Soul:
The Mission of Mary Jo Copeland, (Colorado, 2004), p 19.
2Nelson and Pickett, p 7.
3Michelle Lynne Peterson, Great Love: The Mary Jo Copeland Story, (Ohio, 2003),
p 96.
4Peterson, p 90.
5Nelson and Pickett, p 29.
6Peterson, p129.
7Peterson, p164.
8Peterson, p180.
9Peterson, p 196.
10Peterson, p 208.
11Nelson and Pickett, p 30.
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