Mobile Loaves & Fishes founder announces book
through W Publishing Group
Book releases March 2017
Contact:
Kimberly Golladay
Tel: 615-902-2217
Kimberly.golladay@harpercollins.com
Nashville, Tenn. – Oct. 20, 2016 – It’s time to rethink homelessness in America. So says, Alan Graham, the visionary behind Austin’s Community First! Village and Founder and CEO of the nonprofit Mobile Loaves & Fishes. “What if today, you gave a hug instead of a buck? Or you blanketed someone with love instead of of an old coat?,” asks Graham, 2015’s Austinite of the Year and co-author of the new book Welcome Homeless: One Man’s Journey of Discovering the Meaning of Home (ISBN 9780718086558). Co-authored with Lauren Hall, the book will release on March 7, 2017 through W Publishing Group, an imprint of Thomas Nelson and a division of HarperCollins.
In the book, Graham recounts the stories of the homeless that have reshaped his life and shifted his worldview. In 1998, Graham felt a calling to leave behind a successful real estate career in order to focus exclusively on serving the homeless, a vision that eventually expanded to include Community First! Village—a one-of-a-kind, privately funded, 27-acre master-planned community. This amazing location features living space for RV’s, tiny homes, and canvas cottages, providing affordable, permanent housing and a supportive community for the chronically homeless in Central Texas.
Ultimately, Graham hopes readers will invite those living on the fringes of society into their hearts and experience a paradigm shift in understanding what it means to be “home.” Homelessness, he contends, is not fundamentally a consequence of moral and spiritual inadequacies, but rather it is often the logical and economical outcome for a large part of our population who have suffered some kind of catastrophic loss of family or fortune.
Welcome Homeless is about “doing,” not saying—a “gospel con carne” theology—coined by Graham to represent putting some meat on the gospel, so your heart can grow hardy. “There are millions of people across the world who are dying for a piece of bread, but there are many, many more dying for the smallest bit of love. For human contact. For carne. This is a hunger for love. This is a hunger for God,” said Graham.
Associate Publisher of W Publishing, Joel Kneedler, comments “When we first heard about Alan’s work in Austin, we were struck by his holistic approach to reaching and caring for people. We are honored to partner with Alan and his Community First! Volunteers by publishing the portraits of everyday people who simply need someone to love them. Welcome Homeless will change the way you see and interact with people living on the streets.”
To learn more go to: mlf.org/welcome-homeless
Thomas Nelson, a division of HarperCollins, is a world-leading provider of inspirational content and has been providing readers with quality life-changing product for more than 200 years. The publishing group provides distribution of its products in more than 100 countries. Thomas Nelson is headquartered in Nashville, TN.