This is a great story thank you for sharing. I recently joined a Board of a new organization and this hits home.

I just have a brief story dealing with one of my experiences with the homeless. A year ago I went out on Christmas Eve with a group who makes up meals to give to the homeless. We put together meals in styrofoam clamshells and went out walking the streets of downtown San Diego just north of Horton Plaza. I must admit that I am not really a downtown dweller and only really go down there for a game at Petco or perhaps something at the convention center. One of the first things that I discovered was that as soon as you walk around a little bit down there, you’ll notice that there are a lot of people living on the streets. There are far more than I ever realized while driving my car to a game at Petco. Some have been on the streets for a long time and some are newly homeless. The newly homeless look just like you and me. Some are individuals and others are entire families. I found the plight of the families to be most gut wrenching. When I first started handing out meals, my first impressions were that it would be all about having a nice hot meal on Christmas eve. For some of the homeless people that I ran into, I think that this might have been the case. What I did not expect was that for most of the people that I ran into, it was more about another person stopping to say hello and talking to them as a fellow human being. I think for alot of them, they are invisible. People walk by and pretend not to see them. It seemed to me that for 75-80% of them, it was more about someone taking he time to stop and ask how they were doing and treating them like a fellow human being. One of the things that sticks with me, was the conversation I had with three homeless guys. We chatted about the Chargers. It was no different than a conversation that I might have with a friend or a colleague at work. I could tell that something as simple as that really meant a lot to them. After our brief “Charger talk”, I could see tears welling up in each of their eyes. I think its easy to forget that the homeless are people. I don’t deny that some may have serious problems and perhaps real issues with drugs, alcohol, and mental illness, but even with all of that we shouldn’t forget that they are also people.

Karen – Your project looks fantastic!