We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Christina Cheng-Patel a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Christina, appreciate you joining us today. Can you talk to us about serving the underserved.
Thank you CanvasRebel for this opportunity to share about Under My Umbrella, a very small grassroots 501c3 non-profit. UMU has 3 core programs, one of which is our Neighbor Outreach program where we serve about 50-100 of our unsheltered weekly in the DFW and surrounding areas.
A recent interaction really impacted me that I’d like to share. A gentleman I spoke to every week gave me a watch one day. He says, “Can you keep this for me please? I know if I have it, I’ll sell it. It’s important to me. Can you please keep it safe?” “Of course,” I said.
I kept that watch in my glove box. Each week when I returned to the camp to give food, he would ask me if I had his watch and if he could just see it. And each week, I would show him that I still had it with me. All he wanted to do was see it. Then he got his meal and went about his day. Working part time. Making progress. One week, he looked uncharacteristically disheveled. Something had changed. He asked for his watch back. And I knew. The following week, he was agitated, eyes dilated, and even a bit aggressive. He had been displaced from his area and seemed lost and confused. I have not seen him since.
Imagine giving the only thing you own worth anything to a stranger basically? It means he trusted me. It means that he was really trying. It means he was hopeful. So some may ask, what’s the point? All this time and effort spent and he could not maintain his sobriety and break his cycle. I know I cannot provide all the resources people need to recover and live a healthy independent life. That’s not why I am here. I am here to show those in need that they are loved and they are important and that they have people rooting for them. I’m here to feed anyone who needs a meal. I am here to listen. To share some time. Some hope. To have a moment of humanity with those who are often forgotten or thrown away by mainstream society. I’m here because I can be and because I want to be in case he appears someday and would like for me to guard his watch again.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
Our story began years ago when one of my sons was about 7 years old. As a working mom, I often had to take my boys to the office with me. One scorching Texas day, my son noticed a gentleman panhandling on the corner as I turned into the parking lot of my office. My son wanted to give that gentleman a cold bottle of water which we did not have in the car at the time. I told my son that we would go to the store and get some water after work. After work, we drove around and around that intersection and could not locate the man again. My son was devastated so we made a plan to take water and snacks and literally hit the streets that weekend. After that weekend, seeing firsthand how urgent the need was and how happy we could make people just by serving cold water and snacks, we began to ask our family and friends and community to help us. 7000 bottles of water and lots of food and supplies later, we formally filed for our nonprofit in October of 2022. I feel that something as small as cold water on a hot day for a hot cup of coffee on a cold day can make a big impact through serving mindfully and directly connecting with those in need. I also feel that small acts of kindness can compound and grow exponentially like with my son’s 1 bottle of water growing to over 7000 bottles and now a 501c3 nonprofit.
Can you tell us the story behind how you met your business partner?
My co-founders are my 15 and 12 year old sons. Each one of Under My Umbrella’s 3 core programs has been based on our own experiences and their initiatives.
When my oldest son Ishaan was about 7, he wondered how children at the shelters celebrated the holiday season if they could not have Christmas trees of their own to decorate. We brainstormed together and decided to reach out to our local shelter to ask if we could bring in mini LED lit trees and mini ornaments for the children to decorate. This year will be our 9th year to do our Holiday Outreach Program. We have since expanded to provide mini menorahs and serve assisted living facilities as well.
When my youngest son Avi wanted to give that bottle of cold water to a gentleman on the corner, I took that as a call to take action. That small intentional act of kindness is the basis for our weekly Neighbor Outreach Program.
We also have a Rainy Day Program. This is where we try to fill small needs in our community such as transportation to a job interview, school supplies for a child in need, a hotel room for a single mom waiting for an opening at a shelter, or even just a small gift bag of treats for someone who just needs a little pick-me-up and encouragement. I believe that a little act of kindness goes a long way and we hope to show that with this program.
My sons are my inspiration. Oftentimes children and adults alike become frustrated with the things they cannot control. I try to show the boys how to focus on the things we can control and the ways we can make an impact even when the problems seem too immense to tackle. While we may not be able to solve issues such as affordable housing, our nonprofit focuses on the things we can control and the little ways that we can help. Heart to hand. Hand to heart. 1 person 1 connection at a time.
How do you keep your team’s morale high?
My team is my community. Being adaptable and thinking outside the box has helped us be able to involve more of our community in outreach. I think often people become discouraged or don’t reach out to help if they don’t have the means they think they need to be able to help. But giving can be done in so many ways. Some people are able to give their time, others monetarily, others with knowledge and resources and all are valuable. I believe that everyone who wants to get involved can get involved, we just need to find a way that works. I have people who save plasticware from take-out food that they don’t use and once they save up a bag, they donate them to us. Parents who purchase variety boxes of snacks but the children won’t eat certain flavors donate those flavors to us to upcycle and make snack bags for our unsheltered. Children can decorate brown lunch sacks for service hours or help collect needed items and mobilize in their own neighborhoods. Shopping for our weekly meal packs helps our youth volunteers learn important life skills and gives them the chance to use their own critical thinking skills to figure out how to make the most amount of meal packs while staying within the budget they are provided from financial donations we receive. The idea is that it takes a community and everyone in our community can contribute in an impactful way.
I also think it’s important to keep positive innovative energy when we are looking for new ways to help or contribute. I encourage everyone and especially children to think about ways they would like to help and to then to figure out how to make it happen. That is exactly how UMU started and we are constantly learning better ways to serve and we will continue to change and grow and adapt and improve. And if things don’t work out, it isn’t a big deal. We just may need to rewind the tape, see what we can do differently or change to make something work, and then try again or pivot when necessary. We will launch our first free mini basketball camp this summer and we hope to be able to give under-served children access to sports and eventually the arts and music. But we have never done this before so we will be learning as we go, taking meticulous notes on what is working and what is not, and hopefully, a 4th program under UMU will be established in June 2023! Stay tuned!
My advice would be to encourage people to get involved in whatever capacity they are willing and able. I am also big on sharing resources and collaborations. UMU operates out of our garage and living room and we are limited to what we can store or take to distribute in our car. We share overflow and resources with other nonprofits so that the supplies can get to the people who need them as soon as possible. We collaborate with other nonprofits often and we all mutually expand our reach this way. We hope to highlight that power of community from the individuals contributors to the business sponsors to the community partnerships as we try to cover as many of those in need as we can with our “umbrella.”
Contact Info:
- Website: www.under-my-
umbrella.org - Instagram: under_my_umbrella_
dfw - Facebook: UnderMyUmbrellaDFW