Helping our Homeless

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As I woke up this morning and saw that it was 59 degrees in our home, I couldn’t help to think about a story a co-worker recently told me. The co-worker had taken her cat to the vet a few weeks ago. When she got the cat out of the car, he took off into the nearby woods about 1/2 mile away. Her and her son spent the next week posting missing cat signs and searching the nearby woods. They never found the cat and are fearing the worse. What they did find was very troubling to me. They came across two different homeless camps in the woods, each with 10+ people in them.

photo credit: unproseWhen I use to think of the homeless, I thought of inner cities and images you see on television. I guess I never really thought about people actually living out in the woods. The area where these homeless camps were found are less than 4 miles from my home and I drive by the area every day on my way to work. I really had no clue that these camps existed. Now when I drive by, I can’t help but think about the people out there with little food who are freezing. Even worse, my co-worker would not tell me if their were any children in these camps. She said it was better if we just didn’t know.

After finding these camps, my co-worker and her son immediately went home and gathered any extra blankets, coats, and a tent that they rarely used and took it back out to these people. I was so touched with this story that I thought I needed to share it. My wife and I are now in the process of putting together extra clothing, blankets, and yes - our tent, so that we can pass some of these items on to others who can use them more than us. My co-worker’s son has actually befriended several of these people in the homeless camps and makes weekly trips out to see them and to take them goods. He has even invited some of them over to his house for Thanksgiving diner.

photo credit: TeoIn tough economic times like these, many people are worried about their 401ks or how much their investments are losing. The reality is that those problems are very minimal compared to people who worry about what they are going to eat that day or how they can stay warm. Unfortunately, I worry that with foreclosures at all time highs and thousands of people losing their jobs, that the number of homeless people will only go up. With Thanksgiving just around the corner, I think it is important to sit back and think about how much I am actually thankful for, instead of worrying how much more the stock market is going to go down.