Caritas of Austin

I just love D'Vaughncee's smile. Man. He's amazing.

For the past year I've had the amazing luck of partnering with Caritas of Austin on a number of their big projects in need of photos, such as their website redesign and their annual fundraiser.

Caritas of Austin serves an extremely critical role in the Austin community helping end homelessness with a multi-pronged approach. Here's their mission: 

"We build well-being by making sure that people have a safe home, access to healthy groceries, jobs that provide a reliable living wage, and educational opportunities to learn life skills."

Their impact over the past year has been nothing short of awesome:

Lindsey! My wonderful contact at Caritas.

• Helping to resettle 631 refugees from 16 different countries
• Helping to house 378 homeless families
• And, providing education for 830 people. 

In a time when 40.7% of the US voting population approve of Tr*mp(as of 2/7/2018), when the needs of the most vulnerable people are being actively neglected on a daily basis, the role that organizations like Caritas play in our communities are all the more important! And, the roles that we can play as volunteers using our unique skillsets (or our money) help further their mission and the people affected by it.

Samba in the upholstery workshop

This is where the pictures come in :) For their big fundraiser we created picture profiles of some of the people they've helped to find housing and jobs for. The people I photographed couldn't have been more wonderful!

Samba is a refugee migrating first out of Africa, then Russia, and then to the US.

Karen finally got a garden that she is just bringing to life.

D'Vaughncee is all kindness and smiles

And, Frank is working to stabilize things in his life after years on the move

Karen teaching us about the plants in her new garden

As you can see, in this post I've added several of my favorite pictures. I'm sorry that the pictures seem to go on forever it's just so clear how awesome these people are, how important Caritas is, and how truly negligent it is for our elected officials to refuse to empathize and understand that: we all have the same needs; that we are all the product of our opportunities and experiences; that race, income, gender, and sexual orientation have a huge say in the opportunities and experiences that we're afforded; and that we need to lift up our fellow humans to decrease inequity in our communities. 

JUMP! Go ahead and jump!

Thank you so much, Caritas of Austin, for allowing me to be a part of your work! If you'd like to volunteer with Caritas of Austin you can find opportunities here. If you don't live in Austin or would like to find other volunteer opportunities, you can head over to Volunteer Match (or just email any organization with out of the blue and let them know what you're good at and how you'd like to help... that's what I did).

Have a wonderful week and make someone's day.

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Indiana Adventures - Part 2 - Sadness and Hope

I'm simultaneously nostalgic and relieved to be back in Austin after that whirlwind trip to the Midwest. In Part 1 of our Indiana Adventures™ to Camp Palawopec, I was super excited to share some of the special moments that happened at a place that was so meaningful to my development. What I omitted in acknowledging, and also what is omitted from the photos below in this post, Part 2, are my feelings of exhaustion, sleeplessness, and sadness.

Before I get started, I apologize for temporarily turning a photo blog into a journal entry. For those that don't see our day-to-day life, I don't feel like it's fair to only post photos that are happy and weird, but don't say much about how I'm feeling behind the camera and how that's affecting my abilities to be a good husband, dad, and friend.

Henry playing in the rain in Carmel, Indiana

I've been in quite a funk lately and I'm troubleshooting how to dance my way out of it. Since the inauguration of our president in January I've had feelings of being overwhelmed and of being helpless. It often feels like the wars that many in the GOP are waging are against the innate Christian values that I was raised with*. Instead of inviting the most-vulnerable to the table to share in our feast, our politicians (and at least 46% of voters) have decided that the most-vulnerable in our communities should be condemned to the fringes of our societies, to jails, and detention facilities. That they should be robbed of medical care, voting rights, family planning, economic assistance, education assistance, school lunch programs, protections against hate crimes, and no longer allowed to dream of citizenship.

These two just own my heart

It's felt like the incremental gains in the rights of people of color, immigrants, the LGBTQ community, and people without economic opportunities are being tossed away like the chaff from the wheat. And all my feelings of helplessness, and sadness, and fear just came to a head two weeks ago (...and I know that as a white, married, cisgender, educated, insured, man of economic privilege I'm the least vulnerable to the current administration's policies).  

Keep on climbing

In a lot of ways, volunteering my photography over the past 7 months has been my way out of my sadness hole. It's allowed me to interact with just FRIGGIN' AWESOME people like the folks at Central Texas Pig Rescue (blog post), Healing with Horses, Caritas of Austin, Austin Justice Coalition, Muslim families in Houston (additional blog post), immigrant families in Austin, LGBTQ families in Austin, The Trail Foundation, The Blanton Museum (blog post coming soon), Health Alliance for Austin Musicians, and Casa Marianella. Opportunities I most-likely wouldn't have sought out without feeling the clouds of oppression that this administration has held over our vulnerable communities.

So, I guess that this is a two-pronged post: 1) I want to acknowledge that I'm profoundly sad on a day-to-day basis for the folks whose livelihoods, rights, opportunities, and families are under attack; and 2) that the best way I've found to bring myself out of my funk is to volunteer and get involved with awesome people and organizations.

I love you all. Thanks for reading! Keep making the world a better place for the people in your communities!

Super focused on his squirt gunning

This was actually a lot riskier than it looks

Taters enjoying the rain, too

Henry doing more sprints with grandma and papa watching

Henry doing his sprints after breakfast

Danny working on his synchronized swimming

Taters guarding lives at the swimming pool

Awesome limestone hill at West Park in Carmel

All photos in this blog post are available as prints. Just fill out the print request form and we will work together to get one created to fit your space and needs!

I'm also available for hire. Just fill out my contact form and we will kick off the process!

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*I was raised Catholic until middle school when I dropped out of the church all together. However, culturally, I still feel very attached to Catholicism (like going to sanctuary, volunteering, helping the most-vulnerable, and giving what you can to those that need it most) though I'm sure many would not find what I practice to be Catholic/Christian. I hope that I embody a good portion of Catholic ideals like selflessness, humility, and helpfulness on a daily basis.