I'm not at all trying to be captain conviction here, because I truly believe this stuff should come from your own soul. What you feel strongly about and the degree to which to feel it varies so much from person to person. I'm bringing this topic up here because I care about it, I've recently been affected by it and I hope that by talking about it here, change, even if just in attitude and awareness, might happen. That's my hope, anyway.
So a few weeks back, a group of our friends met at the Britewash laundromat here in Fayetteville, AR, to take some food there so people doing their laundry could have some grub while the got their digs clean. People lined up outside the Britewash to receive their vouchers for quarters being given to go with an assigned machine to do laundry.What's neat about that is that it wasn't just a random act. It was organized by the Cobblestone Project (via Laundry Love). To learn more about them and how to start LLP in your town, click 'em.
Our part of helping out was pretty easy. We lent our ovens to cook some donated lasagna, picked up a few cases of water, some cookies and several loaves of garlic bread so we could help folks who are down and out either from being jobless, homeless or disabled, have full tummies as they did their laundry, some for the only time that entire month. These people are just like me and you. It's their circumstances that make them different from most of the rest of us.
I had prepared myself for rubbing shoulders with some good ole' grubby blue-collars who'd lost their jobs due to cut-backs because of the recession. I had not prepared myself for the stinking, mentally ill, scabies-infested, disabled faces who wanted, with a smile (well, mostly), a heaping plate of lasagna.
People had black garbage bags full of clothes. I saw one lady washing her seat covers and she said it's the first time she'd washed them in years. One lady didn't want dinner, just cookies. She probably ate a dozen cookies that night.
Let me just say that serving is so much easier to do when there's not an empty plate attached to the hand of a skinny man back for the fourth and fifth time for more food. It was hard because it made me uncomfortable to see a grown man so hungry. If we didn't need to make sure everyone got food, I would have given that man an entire pan of lasagna and a loaf of bread to go with it.
One younger girl came and sat by my friend, Jessica, who amazed me that night. She had been a teacher at the school where this 6th grade girl (who looked like a 9th grader developmentally) plopped down right down next to us for most of the night. Jessica knew who she was and of her sister, too, and their tough family situation.
This sweet, almost teenage girl sat and told us when we asked her what she was in to, that she liked to play basketball, walked a mile to her bus stop every day, going and coming, and that no, she didn't like Harry Potter or Twilight because she couldn't read. Wow, that was hard to hear. How is that even possible today? She also stank and seemed completely unaware of it.
Her older sister came by for a chat, although not nearly as friendly as her younger sister. She told us her older sister had been in the "nut house" last summer because of her uncle dying and all. "She's a cutter, ya know..."
The man that kept coming back and getting in line for more food actually apologized to us that he was back again saying, "I'm sorry. I just can't help it. It's just so good." I believe it was said that as long as there was lasagna in the pan he could keep coming back until it was all gone. There were probably 50-75 more stories similar to his that night.
At one of my favorite spots in town this morning (this was actually last week that I wrote this) at our public library, I'd been working for about an hour-and-a-half and was about to wrap things up and grab some lunch when I noticed, by smell first, a couple walking past me to sit at the bar of the library coffee shop. It's 30 degrees here today. I'm sure just like me they thought that the library is a free, warm place on days like today.
The petite woman, dressed in what looked like a man's snow bib, man's boots and over-sized coat, went to the table a few in front of me to quietly ask if they were going to eat their packaged crackers they'd gotten with their soup. The women at the table gave their crackers to her. She walked past me, her scent soon followed and I watched the man with her scour the other tables as if looking for more uneaten food.
As I packed up my computer and belongings, I could no longer smell the aroma of espresso in the air. It smelled like camping or sweaty kids in from recess mixed with garbage, now.
I had three dollars and change left on me. I wanted to ask if I could treat them to a piece of pumpkin bread, string cheese or hot tea. I went up to the counter to check their prices because I usually just get coffee or tea when I go. Hot tea is $2 and that is only if you bring your own cup, like I usually do. One piece of raspberry pistachio bread is $2.95. Same with the pumpkin bread. Yogurt was $2. I felt flustered because I didn't have enough money to get them both something. I didn't know how to split it up and I didn't want to draw attention to them or to myself because it's a small area. Not knowing what to do, feeling like I'd awkwardly been standing up there forever, I turned and left.
I left feeling paralyzed, burdened and a little angry I couldn't have done more. So I started thinking about what I could do and writing here is one of several things I wrote down on the list of things I plan to do.
One more thing. If, like many of you are, thinking about helping others in need this Christmas season, check ChristmasChange out. Its website is all about this: "Join us in spending less and giving more to those in need. Join us in restoring the magic and wonder to this season, as you use your resources to spread good news to those in desperate need."
If you, like I, forget how something as simple as having clean laundry can be such a big thing to some, be reminded this week as you load and unload your washer and then ... do something about it. The way we keep vigilant and not desensitized about remembering those in need is to be among and around them. Consider sacrificing and helping your community this holiday and this coming year.
If you, like I, forget how something as simple as having clean laundry can be such a big thing to some, be reminded this week as you load and unload your washer and then ... do something about it. The way we keep vigilant and not desensitized about remembering those in need is to be among and around them. Consider sacrificing and helping your community this holiday and this coming year.
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