the OCP blog

A Great Year at OCP Dear Friends of OCP, It has been an amazing first year for me as OCP’s new director. Ron Copeland has some very large shoes to fill, but staff, the Board, and our many volunteers and donors have continued to rally behind OCP...

Proverbs for the Next Kitchen Coordinator A tongue-in-cheek blog post by Randi B. Hagi The walk-in cooler and freezer are not your friends. They may seem like your friends, but do your friends make you regularly clean their rooms just to bring...

In Memory of Tom Dukes, Our Featured Volunteer of the Month “We rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame…” Romans...

We're Going Solar The premier issue of our time is climate change. New reports highlight the number of species dying, the number of children growing up breathing unhealthy air (94% globally), and the extreme warming and changes in Antarctica....

WRAP® Wellness Recovery Action Plan at OCP In April of this year, I was invited by a local non-profit, Strength in Peers, to attend a week long WRAP facilitation training. WRAP® is an acronym for Wellness Recovery Action Plan, a peer led...

In Memoriam: Teig Hogan & Tom Dukes Our community lost two beautiful souls this week. Teig Hogan and Thomas Dukes were community members, volunteers, and friends. “Dukes” was a faithful volunteer who could always be found in the...

Crap Happens: Some Thoughts on Suffering and Resilience My firstborn son, Ethan, would have turned 9-years-old on August 31st. He was diagnosed with a fatal birth defect at his 20-week prenatal check-up, and being assured that he was...

The Story of a Muscovy Duck and a Rooster For over two decades now, Our Community Place has been able to create an atmosphere of joy and acceptance and a sense of belonging to beings most of the community overlooks. People just walk on by them,...

Featured Volunteer of the Month: Richard "Gilligan" Entsminger “It is your reaction to adversity, not the adversity itself, that determines how your life’s story will develop.” Dieter F. Uchtdorf Just like the previous heart-warming and...

The Blessings of Service Annie has been working with a long-time community member. We’ll call him Abe. In recent months we all noticed Abe was getting slower and thinner, even falling asleep at the table at OCP.  Abe was getting so bad he just...

Featured Volunteer of the Month: Symonè Bolden “You are a person worthy of love. You don’t have to do anything to prove that. You do not have to earn love. You simply have to exist. We are worthy whether or not we accomplish anything.” – Sharon...