Mennonite Weekly Review: Former panhandler wows MEDA audience

By Wally Kroeker

As published in the Mennonite Weekly Review - Nov.29, 2010 Issue

CALGARY, Alta. — For Frank O’Dea, a second chance led to founding Second Cup, Canada’s first specialty coffee chain.
Speaking to the annual convention of Mennonite Economic Development Associates on Nov. 4-7, O’Dea said he had hit rock bottom on the streets of Toronto — a homeless panhandler begging for nickels and dimes to buy cheap wine or a night at a 50-cent flophouse.

Then he got a second chance at sobriety.

O’Dea spoke to 400 people about unearthing hidden potential and “unleashing entrepreneurship,” the convention theme.

After selling his share in the company — which now has hundreds of outlets across Canada — O’Dea moved on to other business and service ventures, founding Street Kids International and the Canadian Landmines Foundation. He eventually received the Order of Canada, the country’s most prestigious civilian honor.

“With a little hope, vision and action, you can change the world,” he said.

Another keynote speaker, a global authority on faith and business, laid out a framework for Christian ethics to bolster entrepreneurship in daily life.

“Can Christians still engage in the marketplace, with all the problems going on?” said David Miller, a former international investment banker who now directs Princeton University’s Faith & Work Initiative.

For Miller, a better question is, “How can Christians not engage in the marketplace?”

Miller said the corporate world can be a moral community. A good starting point is for firms to see themselves as “producing goods and services for humanity to make this world a better place.”

While Western business has suffered greatly from greed and misbehavior, Miller sees evidence that a new generation “doesn’t want to play the game the way it has been played.”

He encouraged business leaders to build faith-friendly companies that go beyond tolerance and recognize how “the Spirit is part of the people we hire.”

Allan Sauder, MEDA president, reported that 2010 had been “a very successful year.”

“Most gratifying, we were able to help over 9.4 million families to live healthier, happier lives through 101 partners in 45 countries,” he said.

He said donated funds unleashed matching funds by a 10-times ratio.

“Your $3 million contributions translated into nearly $33 million of programs,” he said. “Every dollar you donated was able to do the work of 11.”

Sauder said MEDA plans to continue to create business solutions to poverty, including more initiatives in agriculture, women’s empowerment and the business of health.

He said the organization’s insecticide-treated mosquito net program in Tanzania was a global witness to the impact of a business approach. Sauder also noted successes in developing financial services and entrepreneurial opportunities for young people in Egypt and Morocco.

Pennsylvania pastor Jane Hoober Peifer noted in her Sunday message that entrepreneurs, at their best, mirrored “the creative, risk-taking, problem-solving, empowering and enabling characteristics of God.”

“Tether yourself to that place within you where Christ meets you and has set you free, which will then empower you to serve one another, to become servants to one another,” she said.