SOCIAL SCENE
Robert Frachtman, Evie and Cash Nickerson
Judy Maggio and Emmitt Smith chat onstage
the need to come together to strengthen a community. Lynn used the analogy of staggered breathing, the choir technique in which each singer takes a breath at staggered times while the others continue to hold the long note so that the music is uninterrupted. “It is the strength of the whole that allows the note to be carried forth,” she said. For the couple Austin is “a great choir joining together to hold notes for each other to make this the most impossibly good place for a person to live and to thrive and to give back.” Another featured speaker was Sandy Wolff, one of the organization’s clients who exemplifies its work. Thanks to Caritas, as she explained, at age 58 “for first time ever in my life, I have a home of my own, a place to feel safe and secure, especially from the demons of my past.” She has a job she loves is taking college courses. “In all actuality the list of successes from homelessness to becoming a productive member of society grows each and every day for me.” Wolff closed by encouraging attendees to “dig deep” to help Caritas to continue to turn homelessness “from scary nights on the streets, despair and unforgivable acts to success stories for families and individuals who need to live a better life and succeed off the streets.”
18 WATERWAYS | Winter 2018
And dig deep they did. After the live auction and Fund the Mission onsite donation drive led by the enthusiastic cowboys of Heath Hale Auctioneers, Caritas of Austin had raised nearly $200,000, double the total it aimed to raise. Combined with other monies raised in advance of the event, the organization raised nearly $500,000. The evening concluded with Dallas Cowboys running back Emmitt Smith on stage with long-time local news anchor Judy Maggio to answer questions about his life, his career and his own philanthropic work. He touched on how football showed him a world of opportunities outside his childhood in the projects of Pensacola, FL, and his drive in later years to offer “not a handout but a hand up.” “I’m a firm believer that God touched each and every one of us with a measure of talent, and we have to find out what that talent is and we have to maximize every moment of our lives,” said Smith. He added the importance of sharing one’s talent to inspire and enable others to do the same. “We have to inspire others through our lives.” His words of hope and the words of hope offered by the other speakers that night will continue to drive Caritas of Austin’s mission to end homelessness in the Austin community, not simply manage it.
PHOTOGRAPHY BY ANDREW STERLING AND SANDY CARSON
“I’m a firm believer that God touched each and every one of us with a measure of talent, and we have to find out what that talent is and we have to maximize every moment of our lives,” said Smith. He added the importance of sharing one’s talent to inspire and enable others to do the same. “We have to inspire others through our lives.”
