So uh... I don't know how many people are from the chicago area. And I don' know how many of you would even be remotely interested in this. But uh... I'm organizing for a group of people to get together and go to Chicago, and deliver food to the homeless.
The food being distributed would be filling, preferably nutritious, and hopefully of a decent quality.
Project: Christmas in Chicago
But like... I live in the suburbs of Chicago. I hop on the train, and I'm in the city in an hour. And on the way to wherever I'm going, there are homeless on almost every corner. And everybody ignores them. Nobody even takes the time to do anything. Earlier this week, I stopped and started up a conversation with one of the homeless people sitting outside the train station. He'd was living on the streets, having recently had his dissability run out. He had been a factory worker until he lost his leg in an accident, and was no longer able to supply for his family. He is uninsured, and relatively uneducated, With work as hard to find as it is, in the city, he's pretty much out of luck. His wife works at a temp agency, and but has been out of work for almost a year trying to take care of their infant child who has recently fallen ill due to their substandard living conditions.
I was the first person who had said a word to him all day.
He told me about how he was worried that his baby would die this winter, and that he was worried about his wife as well. I gave him the 3 dollars that I had and the remainder of my french fries.
And I talked with the guy for about an hour before my train came in, and it made me think. He told me about how he doesn't like the homeless shelters, because as agnostic-athiest, it made him uncomfortable the way that they made him pray before he ate. About how if he didn't, they wouldn't give him or his family food.
And it just made me think even more about what kind of society centers itself around weatlh and the money, when one in ten have none. When we have corperations who would like for someone to have rights to the air, the earth, and the water?
And this man, this 35 year old man who was born and raised in the United States, who had been tossed aside, shunned, forgotten, and denied by the very people who used him.
Getting back on topic...: Getting by is hard enough when you're gainfully employed, and in any range of the working or middle class. Its even harder when you're homeless.
Even if you're not in Chicago or in Illinois, or even if you aren't from the US, you have the power to do something as a member of society.
When I was in Washington D.C. volunteering at the Center for Creative Non-Violence (CCNV, the largest homeless shelter in the nation, possibly the world), I met a man there. He ran the place, and made no money. He was a brilliant man... a doctor in Chemistry, and a qualified nutritionist, who was living among the homeless. He was making $0 a year, running a government funded non-profit homeless shelter. And every day for that week, I gave him all the pennies I could collect (around 5 a day), and he was satisfied. He was greatful for five cents a day.
The whole point of that story is this:
You don't have to give much. You can give a couple of pennies, you can give a couple of dollars. You can give a blanket, or a slice of bread. You can give a blanket, a sweatshirt, a couple of t-shirts. It doesn't matter.
"When you condition people to expect nothing, the slightest something will throw them into hysterics".
Anyway, I've made my point I guess, and it may have taken me quite a while.
Project: Christmas in Chicago
Especially with winter, with December, with Christmas being just around the corner, I cannot stress just how important it is to give what you can, even if its just a thought, a hello, a handshake or a conversation.
Edit: I'm not trying to sound overly preachy, or like I'm trying to force my opinions or beliefs on anyone, or like I'm trying to force anyone to give anything they don't want to.
But still. You should. >_>
Edited by Wolfgang, 04 October 2005 - 08:39 AM.
