Meet Jac Brennan of A Simple Thread

Today we’d like to introduce you to Jac Brennan.

Thanks for sharing your story with us Jac. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
In 2008, I was reading “Street Lawyer” by John Grisham. In one of the early scenes, a group of lawyers are taken hostage by a homeless man. He asks each of them, “What have you done to help poor people?” The lawyers mention checks written and charity galas, but the homeless man keeps saying, “But what have you actually done to help a poor person?” I closed the book, asking myself that same question. In that moment, the idea for A Simple Thread was born.

It was, and remains, a very simple idea. We know that there are many organizations that help homeless people by providing shelter or a meal or job training or housing assistance. We wanted to do something more “street-level” where we would have direct interaction with homeless Houstonians. The idea was that we would create small kits of items that people often do not have when they are homeless and we would distribute those kits, from our hands to theirs. They would not have to fill out a form or meet some qualification or prove their need or even give us their names (although many of them introduce themselves to us).

I gathered a group of friends to be the Board of Directors and, within a couple of months, we gathered to put kits together and go out to distribute them. From the start, we knew we were filling a need in the homeless community. We decided to operate with zero overhead — no salaries, no offices — with an all-volunteer staff, so that every penny that was donated to A Simple Thread would be used to purchase items for the kits.

More than 25,000 kits have been distributed from our hands to theirs in our nine years of helping, in simple ways, homeless Houstonians. Everyone who has ever been involved in our organization agrees that we have all gotten more than we’ve given during this labor of love.

A Simple Thread has so many stories from our countless hours of delivering kits. The most recent happened at our distribution last month. We ran out of kits, as we often do. As we were getting back into our cars, a man approached us. We were about to tell him that we had no more kits, but he greeted us and then said, “I just want to say thank you. For eight months, I lived right there in that spot on the sidewalk. I didn’t have anything. But you guys were here to help. I needed everything you gave. You never asked for a thing in return. Now I have a place to stay. I have a job. I even have an old car. I come out here now to help people. But I don’t forget that I was out here on that sidewalk for eight months. I am here now because you were here when I needed you. Thank you.”

Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
The work we do has always been the easy part. We have a very active, involved Board of Directors. We get other volunteers who help with distributions. Over the years, we’ve had scout troops, school groups, church groups, law firms, and other organizations who have volunteered by either gathering kit items, putting kits together, or going on distributions.

Fundraising, of course, is always the more difficult part. We’ve done a variety of fundraising activities over the years, the most successful of which was participating in, and winning, the OKRA Charity Saloon competition several years ago. We will never forget that month.

If you had to go back in time and start over, would you have done anything differently?
Honestly, nothing. I love the way we started and the way we’ve grown. We had a single vision and, every day, A Simple Thread exists to do that one thing.

Contact Info:

• Address: 4447 Rusk Street
• Website: www.asimplethread.org
• Phone: 713.824.2874
• Email: jacbrennan@gmail.com
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/asimplethread

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