May 6th Speaker:
Joe Field: Finding Dad After 60 Years.
Joe Field, a successful attorney of 26 years, is the son of a Texas Hispanic mother.
Joe’s father was an unknown. Joe’s birth certificate contained a blank line for “father”. Joe’s mother married another man not too long after Joe’s birth and soon Joe would have three other siblings.
They would live in Fayetteville, North Carolina.Then, when Joe was nearly seven years old, his mom and stepdad separated, and child protection entered in. They stripped Joe’s mother of the care of other children and placed them all in foster care. Only a valiant, in-the-light-of-day, kidnapping by his pregnant mother would secure Joe’s future with his mother. Joe’s other siblings would have it not it so lucky. Neither Joe nor his mother would see them again for 17 years.
Joe’s mother moved to Texas and lived there until Joe was 10 years old. It was then that Joe’s mom did something either extremely reckless or extremely courageous that would forever change his life, and that of his two new siblings.
With 70 cents to her name and less than 24 hours to prepare, she joined a migrant worker caravan headed to the sugar beet fields of Montevideo, Minnesota. Soon Joe, his mom and his two sisters, found themselves in the back of a canvas top pickup truck, along with about a dozen others, headed to Minnesota.
Throughout Joe’s 60 years of life the identity of his father remained veiled from him and his yearning to know him intensified, particularly when he had children of his own. His only leads were his mother’s statements that his dad “was in the Air Force” and that “he was a firefighter”. And Joe was of white complexion, so his dad was likely the same. At one time Joe’s mother mentioned that his dad’s last name was “Adams” but doubts about that surfaced when family members said otherwise. Private searches yielded no results. To make matters worse, when Joe was 37 years old, his mother died and the task of finding his father now seemed insurmountable.
But then it happened. Thanks to a DNA test and some other fortunate happenings, on July 29, 2017 Joe was filmed, by a national news network, meeting his father for the first time.
But it was how he was received by his father and new found seven siblings that will be talked about for years to come.
Be inspired, as Joe shares his story of setbacks and triumphs and how he ended up eventually finding his father and, what has happened since.
April 29th Speaker:
Jim Huff, executive director, Cars for Neighbors (C4N), will be our speaker. Free To Be, Inc. is now called Cars for Neighbors. They’re still the same 501c3 non-profit. The name change better reflects the services they provide.
Are all car donation charities the same? There are 75 charities in MN that receive donated cars. C4N uses proceeds from the sale to help neighbors in need of car repair services.
The mission of C4N is fostering independence by providing car care.