As soon as we left the house this morning the kids were on the lookout for needy people. After all, our minivan is literally filled to the brim with your donations: coats, food, water, bags of helps, blankets. I think the back of our van bottomed out at least once today. Being a rainy day, there were few people in the usual places.
Today, as we drove home from lunch we saw a man with his sign on the corner. American Vet. Need Help. Please.
Tyler asked me yesterday if we had to wait until Christmas to give out the items we've been given. "We shouldn't just wait until Christmas right, Mom? We should give stuff out now as we see people, right?" Really, would you dare argue with logic like that?
So, today when we saw the man on the corner we gave him a couple of the bags. We were stopped at the light and the guy said, "This is great...but would you happen to have a coat? Mine is soaked."
Tyler yelled from the backseat, "YES! Yes! We have a coat!" All three kids simultaneously tried to unbuckle their seat belts so they could dive into the back seat to look for coats. We had to pull over to get it out of the back and avoid a costly click-it ticket (x3). While we were there, we gave the man a couple more bags, some jeans and a coat for his girlfriend.
The man thanked us, "Thank you, thank you! God bless you! God bless you!" over and over, then, waving, returned to his soggy post on the corner.
Need doesn’t go away in the rain, as we saw today. It is a heartbreaking truth.
We may be soaked, but we will be out at Cesar Chavez Park at 11 am on Christmas morning. Rain or shine.
The truth of it is, that we may all be there and the homeless may not be. If it is raining at or close to 11 am, count on there being more people out there ready to help, than people needing help. That is ok with me if that is ok with you. In that case, we will split up our bags, food, coats and blankets amongst our volunteers and take to the streets in groups.
If we still have a hard time tracking down the homeless, the items we have will be collected up and saved for the Christmas Dinner with Project 61 on December 29.
If one person gets blessed or fifty, the day will be a success. Thank you to everyone who has helped so far, it has been wonderful!!
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