ALMOST TWO YEARS!
I've been looking back at the blog posts, realizing it's been almost two years that we have done the FeedSeattle thing. We have gone through a number of changes in that time, all in the name of feeding the homeless on the streets of Seattle.
Now we find ourselves in (yet another) rebuilding period, and it's been a bit slow going. I want to give a bit of synopsis of where we have been, so perspective new volunteers can get a sense of where ours hearts are at a glance, without having to read through two years of blog posts.
I got a heart for the homeless while working at Safeco Insurance Company in the U-district. It's a bit of a long story to type here, but suffice it to say it involved a sign flyer named 'Gutter', at least that's what he told me his name was. So, after a few internet searches I began volunteering at TeenHOPE in Shoreline. TeenHOPE was a youth homeless shelter in Shoreline for kids between the ages of 13 and 17. I started on the overnight shift, then began doing street outreach and feeding in downtown Seattle, and eventually joined the Board of Directors. I found that I really liked the street outreach; driving downtown with a green van loaded with food, cloths, and volunteers to distribute to the youths hanging out. It was during this time that I also realized that I was not made to be on a Board of Directors. The politics and conversation about the same topic over and over just ground me down; I’d rather be on the streets feeding people. Though I'm certainly thankful there are others that are good at doing the Board of Directors thing.
About the time TeenHOPE was having financial issues, and eventually sold to another non-profit organization, I moved to downtown Seattle. It was at this time I decided to try starting my own street outreach feeding program. I wanted it to be all volunteer funded and have a low barrier of entry. I decided to have volunteers, all of whom I got off Craigslist, bring $10 to each event. All of that money would go to the food for the following week. We would get together in the common room of my apartment building for a half hour or so, put food bags together, then hit the streets to distribute. I must admit I was a bit surprised how quickly we grew. Each evening we would have two or three new people, and while they did not all come back, we regularly had 10-15 people within just a few months. It showed me that people are good, and want to help, it’s just that they need a bit of motivation and instruction. It’s not easy to walk up to a stranger on the street and offer them food, but I find that even the most nervous person can do it after seeing it done a few times. It was certainly out of my comfort zone initially.
During that first year we partnered with a number of organization, mostly churches, a fraternity from UW, etc. In fact, we had one special Saturday outreach event that included 4 groups where over 500 people were fed. That was AWESOME!!!
Soon thereafter I had schedule change at work, and got married. So I decided to take a bit of time off. Coal Creek Chapel in Bellevue decided to take over the effort. However, instead of doing mobile events (where we backpack around bags filled with food to distribute) they decided to do Saturday events where they would bring a bunch of food to Occidental Park in Seattle to distribute, often giving away great food like Teriyaki Chicken with rice and home made Chili. Many months later it worked out that I was ready to get back into the FeedSeattle gig, while Coal Creek was having some leadership issues and had to back out for a while.
So that's really where we are at now. I'm back in trying to build up a list of volunteers for twice monthly mobile events. It's been much slower going this time around, and now I've had another change in employment so our scheduling is a bit spotty. However, I do have a small list of volunteers that are hard core dedicated, so I'm confident we can grow this group up again once my job future is figured out.
At the end of the day it's not about numbers, it's about people getting fed that otherwise would have gone hungry.
