Last night was another great success. Upon Jessica's suggestion we tried putting cheese sandwich parts together. Essentially a few Costco rolls, two slices of pre-wrapped cheese, mayo packet, and a mustard packet. I'm still debating on whether it's worth doing or not. While We were able to put them together much faster than I had anticipated, and it gets something a bit more substantial in the bags, they get kinda squished and is something that we have to go through left over bags and take out, as cheese is definitely perishable. We'll see.
We sent out 11 people to our usual spots. One of the volunteers reported "The Seattle Center house was packed tonight. I was out of bags in about 5 minutes, but between the group of us, we had enough for all of them and walked around Queen Anne a bit as well. The socks were really appreciated." My sister had sent me about 60 pairs of socks from Boston which are always a big hit with the homeless as they are on their feet most of the day, often with wet shoes.
Myself, co-worker Brian, and regular volunteer Lindsey headed down to Occidental Park to meet up with Coal Creek Chapel who was back to help us again. CCC had hot coffee, food bags, cloths, soup; all kinda good stuff. Once we said 'Hey' the 3 of us went on a walk under the viaduct, to the group of tents we had success at last time. The tents had moved, and we almost missed them, but thank God/the stars/Karma we spotted 'em. It was pretty much the same as before. Shadow was not there, however I met his little sister, who reiterated that she was his "biological" sister; not sure why. She exclaimed something to the effect of "His stupid hoe girlfriend told me he was in jail, I knew he wasn't in jail so I took my dogs back". don't know the full story, but sure enough she had Pumpkin and Bugs whom we'd met a few weeks previous. We also saw the lady with Gustav the Rooster again; Gustav is alive and well!
I really want to take a few minutes and chit chat with these people, and always plan to, but then when the moment comes I am so focused on reaching as much of the streets as we can that I usually take off right away. It's a delicate balance between helping a few people a lot or a lot of people a little; our group tends to focus on the later rather than the former.
We headed back next to the stadiums, served a few cars and RVs. We approached one van, knocked, and was greeted with an open door; which is wierd as people usually just open windows. There were 3 guys inside, and when I gave them the snack packs I think I made three of the happiest stoners the world has ever seen. One guy in the back of the van kept repeating "I love you man, you're the best, thanks man, I love you".
Then we ran across Joe, from Joe's Hot Dogs, a regular pre-game meal for myself and friends before Seahawks/Mariners games. Joe is the coolest, nicest, and one of the most successful, hot dog vendos in town. Don't be fooled by others that claim to be Joe, there is only ONE Joe. After he told me about seeing Jay Buehner earlier in the evening...
Joe: What are you up to tonight man?
Me: Feeding homesless peoples, same as you
Joe: I do that all the time, don't like to throw it away. See ya during Mariners Season!
(suddenly I have 'Who are the people in your neighborhood' from Seasame Street in my head)
Once we got back to Occidental Park, Pastor Sean was ready to load us up in his van and drop us off near I5. Lindsey led us to a spot literally on the side of I5 that homeless often bed down, you've likely seen them before. Trudging out near whizzing cars was fun, we found about 6 people asleep under blankets, along with a guy/girl who were awake and huddled in a corner. In fact I didn't even know that the frail young lady was there until she moved, and she was about a foot away from me.
On the walk back to Occidental to end the night we came across some homeless shacks/tents setup near a construction site then hit Yesler park, where we were pointed toward people waiting to get into one of the emergency homeless shelters that opens at 9:30pm (and makes people leave at 4:30am). It was great serving a man who was smoking a joint; everyone was very appreciative
That's really that, our success continues and our numbers are increasing. Thanks a TON to everyone who is giving their time and money.
ToddS
todd at wetfoot dot net
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