In the quiet hours when we are alone and there is nobody to tell us what fine fellows we are, we come sometimes upon a moment in which we wonder, not how much money we are earning, nor how famous we have become, but what good we are doing. -A.A. MILNE
In fairness, each of us is due praise for swashbuckling our way through the malls this holiday season in order to place that beautifully wrapped package in a loved one’s arms. Just finding a parking place much less a non-homicidal sales clerk is a quest best reserved for the courageous and the defiant.
But ultimately it’s not our VISA limit that makes us heroes.
Rising to that level takes the ability to see with our hearts and to find time out of our busy lives to do something about it.
The neighbors we’d like to tell you about for our last issue of the year know how to use their 20/20 eyesight of the heart, for community and for family.
Bread Upon the Waters / It started out as a simple enough request.
“One day I called Don Hoogland and said: Will you go down to Kroger’s on Saturday and pick up the day-old goodies for the community pastors to distribute? So he started doing that for me and gosh…” says Reverend Pamela Clark. “It just grew like crazy.”
The off-campus ministries program that Rev. Clark, associate pastor of Lake Highlands United Methodist Church, began six years ago is an outreach effort aimed at a number of neighborhood apartment complexes. The idea is to hold church services right at the apartments to provide comfort and faith to those who might not ever attend one of LHUMC’s regular services. Area stores like Kroger and the new super Target save their day-old baked goods for volunteers – or “servant leaders” as they are called at the church – to pick up and bring to these services…nutrition for body as well as the soul, so to speak.
What Rev. Clark didn’t realize at the time was that the man she had just asked to distribute some bread and cookies to neighborhood people in need had spent much of his life pretty much doing just that.
“I’m a retired bureaucrat,” chuckles Hoogland. “I was part of the government’s Food and Nutrition division…was one of the original staff when the food stamp program started back in the 1960s. It was my job to set it up in the state of Arkansas before I became the regional rep for several states.
“I know the need of people. I visited homes and saw the conditions people live under.”
Rev. Clark says: “I knew Don and Virginia (Don’s wife) at that time, but all I knew was that they were members of my congregation; I didn’t realize how incredibly awesome it was that God had chosen him. He had received training to do this kind of job, and he also has the gift of service.”
Hoogland says that his wife was actually the one who got him involved in the first place, working with the ministry in one of the apartments: “She’s a teacher and all, I more or less took care of the treats for the kids,” smiles Hoogland who says they brought up four kids of their own in Lake Highlands. “Three still live in the neighborhood, but I can’t get my daughter who lives in Colorado to move back. She was involved with Young Life since high school and was doing some volunteer work in Buena Vista and met her husband on staff there. They love it. I like to kid the Young Life people here…say they’re the ones who ‘got my daughter,’” he jokes.
Rev Clark says: “Don’s such a good guy, such a wonderful personality. It’s been so neat to watch him take ownership of his ministry. Immediately he put into place a rotation system for the bread pick-ups and got people to do back-up. He just took his ministry and took off with it. That’s how our off-campus ministries got involved with Network (of Community Ministries) and Austin Street Shelter – we had such an abundance of stuff that Don found avenues to start taking it to other places.”
Instead of having a food pantry at each church in the area, the Network of Community Ministries in Richardson gives those in need a central location where they can go for assistance – a high percentage of them are from the Lake Highlands area says Hoogland. On the other side of the neighborhood, Austin Street Shelter assists the homeless downtown.
Hoogland says: “It started out that me and another guy would just make a pick-up at Kroger’s on Saturday and take everything to the church on Monday. Then after not too long we started picking up four days a week, and we had to get some other volunteers involved. Now we’re picking up at Super Target every day and vendors like La Madeline, Sara Lee, Nabisco are now leaving their leftovers from other Kroger’s for us to distribute.”
He laughs: I had to pick on our minister a bit…he gave my phone number in this biweekly newsletter he puts out and I got 13 volunteers – I told him I didn’t know that many people read it!
“They took a picture of me once and put it in – I had 34 banana boxes full of bread in my 4-Runner sticking out the window.”
Hoogland seems uncomfortable with anyone calling attention to him individually, and tends to talk about others involved in the effort: “I see such wonderful volunteers. Just to meet the people when you go out to the Network Ministry or the Austin Street Shelter…you get to know them. Wonderful people with big smiles on their faces that you’re coming to work with them. Some of them used to be on the street themselves and made it to the point where they’re helping out.
“You see a lot of sad situations, but I still enjoy going down there, knowing that people do need help.”
Rev. Clark says that “it’s been an incredible blessing to watch Don’s love for people. I always pray about placing the right people in the right ministry…I think it’s such a shame so many times in the church when people feel like they have to do something and then they don’t like what they’re doing. So it’s always been my desire to find the right person with the right gift. When I was thinking about someone to replace me in picking up the bread, Don’s name just came to mind.
“As it turns out, it was a perfect match.”
Life With Father / “On Christmas morning when the girls wake up and run in to open their presents under the tree, I’m not there,” says David Burroughs, the Lake Highlands YMCA’s 2001 Father of the Year. “And I’m not there to take them to the Thanksgiving parade either.”
“But I can be there to give them a fun and happy life the rest of the time.”
An honored Dallas Police Department sergeant at the Northeast Substation, Burroughs works the 6:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. shift, which may interfere with sharing Santa’s providence in the early hours of December 25th, but it has other fatherly benefits.
“My wife, Susan, gets the kids off in the morning and I’m there to pick them up in the afternoon and spend time with them then,” he says. “Carmen’s 9 and Kelly’s 7. They have to endure the hardships of my job and I can’t give them everything, but I do my best.”
Susan Burroughs says: “He loves to pick up the girls, stopping to check in with their teachers, and hug their friends and chat with the PTA moms. He helps them with their homework, and places emphasis on the subjects that have traditionally been dominated by males – science, math, computer technology.”
Burroughs laughs about being concerned with women’s issues: “My wife likes to remind me that I’m outnumbered – the sole male in the household. In addition to her and the girls, we have a dog, two mice and nine fish, all female.”
Speaking of animals, Burroughs is known to have a soft spot for them, and it’s apparently not unusual for him to rescue injured turtles and raccoons and armadillos. He’s probably used to being dubbed a nice guy.
“But receiving this honor…I would never have expected that,” he says, shaking his head. “Susan tried to keep it a surprise – wanted it to be my Father’s Day present. But then the lady from the Y was calling to make sure I was available for this ‘get together’ (the award ceremony) and it didn’t make any sense. So she had to go ahead and tell me.”
YMCA Executive Director Nora Belcher, who says that Burroughs has the qualities they look for when bestowing this honor, reports that Susan wrote to them: “History is full of heroes. As a society, it is more common to celebrate the deeds of those whose actions are more visible – the athletes and astronauts, the explorers and entertainers. However heaven holds a special place for the unsung heroes of this world. I’m convinced my husband already has a reserved seat.”
Burroughs, who achieved the rank of Eagle Scout as a young man, has kept up those ideals along with his building and camping skills. Whether serving as Chief of his daughter’s Princesses and Trailblazer tribes, or wielding a hammer and nails, his good-natured enthusiasm is readily apparent.
“My oldest has been hounding me for a year to have a treehouse…I didn’t really want something up high like that,” admits Burroughs. “Somehow I’ve ended up in the middle of building a 112 square foot fort with a deck instead.
“We have a good time. I restored an old German moped, which goes all of 22 miles per hour, and we piggyback ride up to the playground and there’s soccer and baseball. I’m always taking out my camera.”
Burroughs has good words for the way girls are active in sports these days: “It’s fun for them and teaches them to develop fellowship – and it gives the parents a chance to get to know each other…today people seem to isolate themselves more and more. Stuff like this helps.”
A Lake Highlands native who went to Wallace, Lake Highlands Junior High and LHHS, Burroughs says that “it’s amazing how many people I know who I run into in the course of each day, whether someone I went to school with or one of my teachers or coaches, or someone who just says: Aren’t you Dave and Jo Ann Burroughs’ boy?”
Another reason people recognize the police officer’s face is that they’ve seen it at so many community functions. Burroughs formed his neighborhood’s patrol, speaks at school and Boy Scout meetings, and has made a point of forming good relationships with area retailers, contractors and city officials. Whether it’s a public meeting or a neighborhood forum, or church on Sunday morning, he’s present and accounted for. But he says he could never do it alone.
“I have to give my wife a lot of credit – she still has to pick up a lot of slack – has to do double duty at times. And the girls help around the house too.”
In other words, being Father of the Year is really kind of like being Family of the Year in a way. So if you’re driving around in Lake Highlands and see an old moped puttering along with a smiling fellow and some giggling kids, now you know – it’s just Carmen and Kelly with their dad.
Susan Burroughs says: “As a police officer, David has been a hero to many. But he is the one and only hero to our two precious girls.”
