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Did you enjoy the sunshine last Saturday? The GMC Walking Group did! We are so lucky that the weather cooperated for our first walk. Four Georgetown residents (plus one Georgetown dog) joined three GMC guests and GMC staff member Stephanie for a leisurely stroll by the canal and then the waterfront.

Come join us this Thursday for this week’s walk! We will be meeting outside of Grace Church’s gates (1041 Wisconsin Ave, NW) at 11am and departing then. The forecast says it’ll be 68 degrees, and we noticed that trees are starting to bud. Come see it for yourself with us!

Not long after we put the last can of tomato soup away there is a knock at the door.  Pastor Phil Gains was there with his pickup truck loaded with Nutrisystem packages that he just could not finish.  He said that each month they send him more whether or not he has finished the last and that it has built up.  Thanks Phil.  If you happen to be attending the service at Georgetown Lutheran this weekend Tell Phil we appreciate it!

Yesterday, Friday, February 18th, some people from Anthopologie, the store up in Georgetown Park, came by to see if we could use some soup. a lot of soup.  I hesitated….”Cans?”, I asked.   Yes they were cans so I said yes.  Later in the day Carla Weeks came by with another Anthropologie employee and a huge cart of cans of tomato soup.  Carla is the Senior Display Coordinator for our Georgetown Store.  She used the cans in a display and when they retired the display they though, “we can’t just throw this away.”  Thanks Carla!  Thanks Anthropologie!  Here’s to many more edible displays.  And Carla, have you thought of displays with socks?  Underwear?  We can use it all.

The Washington Club honored GMC with a Community Service Award at their annual Have a Heart Luncehon on Valentine’s Day. We are grateful to Arden Batch of the Club and as an active member of Holy Trinity Church in Georgetown for nominating us.

Turnabout is fair play in these sorts of events, and GMC surprised Arden with our own community service award for her work with a homeless individual, Keith. As much as we try to connect with people, sometimes it takes a different approach. Arden reached out to Keith and connected him with a core service agency, eventually getting him into housing. She wins our community service award.

GMC’s consulting psychiatrist, Ron Koshes, gave the keynote speech entitled “The History of Homelessness.” We also debuted the informational video about GMC that Nelson Cuellar, a local filmmaker, made for us.

We are grateful to all of our friends who took time out of their busy day to join us. It was a great event. You can see more pictures of the event in our Have a Heart album on Facebook.

On Sunday, February 12, Jeanne, one of our volunteers and sandwich donors, organized a Bingo tournament at GMC. Today, we welcome her as a guest blogger to recap the action for everyone who wasn’t able to be there. Keep reading to hear about the tournament from her point of view!

We Have a Winner!

Actually, we had a whole bunch of winners during the GMC Bingo Tournament, held Sunday February 12! And, even more importantly, we had a whole bunch of fun!

The event kicked-off around noon, when lunch was served. I brought turkey sandwiches with cheese, lettuce and tomato, which were a hit with the GMC clients, as were the homemade chocolate and banana chip cookies.
Then it was Bingo time!

My friend Hunter Riley showed maturity beyond his teenage years as he called the numbers, verified the winners and bantered with the crowd. Another friend of mine, Hassan Kenney, donated three $10 Subway gift cards as grand prizes (Hassan also donated funds toward the sandwiches and cookies).

I played Vanna White to Hunter’s Pat Sajak, giving out Hershey’s kisses for luck, awarding handfuls of chocolate to the winners of each round and keeping track of who was eligible to win the grand prizes.

After six rounds of Bingo, we had five winners: Tony, Soreta, Hakim, Damian and Osman. The first grand prize gift card was awarded to Osman, since he had won two rounds. Then it was time for the other four winners to compete in a “Sudden Death” round for the two remaining gift cards.

There was tension in the room as people got behind their favorite and cheered them on. In the end, Tony and Damian were the first two to declare Bingo and each walked away with a $10 Subway gift card.

As I said, a good time was had by all. Hunter and I are looking at dates to do another Sunday Bingo tournament in March. If you’re like to help us, or just donate toward lunch or the grand prizes, please let me know!

Jeanne Jennings
Jeanne@JeaJen.com