Seventh Feed - Stories

Seventh feed saw yet another great response from volunteers, with 21 people giving of their time as well as $175 in donations.

The first 3 teams headed out to our usual 3 spots; 5th ave, Seattle Center, and Belltown. I've been noticing that we are heading out earlier than we used to, with experience we are getting the snack packs put togehter in record time.

As Jessica and I were cleaning up and getting ready to head out ourselves, Liz and Jessie showed up. Instead of sending them off by themselves we took them with us on our scouting mission. We loaded all the leftover bags in my truck and headed out.

Our first stop was the Taco Bell in lower Queen Anne, as I'd heard that there are often a number of homeless hanging out in that area. If they were there they were well hidden as we didn't see anyone. I'll likely take another pass in the future on foot.

We headed south along the water to an area in sodo I'd seen tents at during the crazy winter weather. Once we spotted the tents we parked the truck and headed over. The first person we met was later introduced to me as "Shadow, actually people call me Shadow The Protector". Shadow lead us over to an area between a few tents where a number of people were sitting in a circle, there might have been a fire there but my attention was elsewhere. Shadow introduced us to his dog and his puppy; Bugs and Pumpkin. Once we served them and were walking away the petite blonde girl lifted up her sweatshirt to show us she was pregnant, we gave her a bag for her child as well. Later in the night we came across another pregnant homeless woman; so sad.

Continuing on we served a number of tents, sometimes communicating with the person inside and sometimes just leaving the pack near the tent flap. When we called out to one tent and asked how many people were in it, what we thought was "Just me an Gustav" turned out to actually be "Just me and the rooster", which turned out to be true.

We also ran across a number of people living in vehicles. One couple with their cat and rat, another man with a huge TV in his small van (huge being relative, it was likely 27inches). Another younger gentleman in an RV with 3 dogs. When we got back to my truck we had 4 bags left and decided to walk them over to Shadow the Protector to do as he see's fit. During our previous discussion he'd mentioned that he was kind of the care taker of the group, which is where the proclaimation of "The Protector" comes from.

The person who had the most effect on me tonight was the girl that Shadow was talking to when we first came across him. She didn't "look" like she should be homeless. She looked like she should be shopping at The Gap with her friends, or enjoying a latte at Starbucks. She mentioned that her parents were in the tent next to her and I could not help but wonder if the rough economic times had recently put them on the street. From this I take away that bad things happen to everyone, and without a good support system things can get real bad; Thank God for my wonderful family and friends!

Eigth Feed is on January 28th, but I wish it was tomorrow.

That's that for now!

ToddS