Tuesday, November 18, 2014

Day 49

Today turned out to be one of the most satisfying of all my days doing this project.

I did several things, all revolving around food security and feeding those in need in my local community.

First, I donated a bunch of canned goods to the Inter-Faith Food Shuttle, via a food drive by my son's Cub Scout Pack. That was going to be my thing for the day.

But I saw an opportunity to help sort and weigh the food items everyone brought, so I jumped at it. (The den that brings the most donations by weight gets to hit our Cubmaster in the face with pies, so naturally, weighing everything was critical.) In total, our Pack raised over 200 lbs of food in one night. And we've got four more chances to bring food. At this rate we may hit half a ton. That would be fantastic.

There's a bit more to the story though. There was another man who was helping with organizing and packing up all the donated food. I didn't recognize him, but he was helping out so I wasn't going to argue. After everything was taken care of and all the food was loaded into the coordinator's car, I asked this man if he had a son or a grandson in the Pack. (He was an older man.) He said no, he just came in to get warm.

It turned out he was homeless. So while everyone was occupied with the Scout meeting, I snuck out and helped him across the street (he had a bit of a limp due to some foot surgery) to get him some food, drink, and a little cash. He thanked me, and then admitted he hadn't eaten anything in two days.

It must have been so hard for him to see all that food, and even help with organizing it and everything, and just pack it up to go into somebody's car. I'm sure if we'd realized we could have given him some of it. But he didn't say a word. He just helped like it was no big deal.

I hope he finds a warm place to stay tonight.

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