A Cheerful Holiday Message

It’s the holiday season and that means one thing: News reports showing political officials serving Thanksgiving dinners at soup kitchens and homeless shelters. Very few things get me as upset as this.


Folks, if you want to do a good deed on Thanksgiving or Christmas Day, please don’t pester your local homeless shelter. Stay home and enjoy your turkey and football and family dysfunction.

Several years ago, I was a supervisor in a large housing facility in Chicago that provided hundreds of hot meals every day. Every year at Thanksgiving or Christmas, we would be inundated with folks wanting to volunteer and serve meals on those days. We had to assign extra staff just to take care of all the phone calls.

I remember one woman who got very upset when she showed up to volunteer and it was suggested she help stock the shelves in the kitchen. Oh no! She wanted to work “with” the unfortunate homeless people. I’m sure she envisioned herself benevolently smiling to the less fortunate as she handed them a plate of food.

And yes, city officials made their appearance for the news teams. They’d crowd into the serving line and dish up green beans for half an hour, disrupting the entire operation, and then leave. All for show. They were serving their needs; not their constituents. 

Parents would drag their teenage children there to show them the unfortunate, homeless people in hopes of providing them with a lesson on how good they had it. (The Duggars did the same while visiting Washington D.C. last year.) Then, the parents would get upset when we didn’t have anything for them to do. I really wanted to tell these parents that our facility provided multiple services, but being a zoo wasn’t one of them. (Jim Bob Duggar, take note.)

Yes, volunteers are severely needed at these facilities – year round. There were wonderful people who faithfully showed up all year long to help out and I don’t know what we would have done without them. They answered phones, stocked shelves, unloaded delivery trucks – all behind the scenes.

These facilities serve meals every day and they have their routine down really well. Homeless people are hungry every day. It’s not like there’s a huge surge of them requiring sustenance just because it's a holiday.

If you want your teenager to volunteer, great. Have the little darlings show up every Monday at 7:00 am before school, without fail, so they can unload the delivery truck in the back alley.

On Thanksgiving as you’re enjoying your turkey and gravy and find yourself wanting to help, do your local shelter a real favor.  Stay home, watch the game, and write a check.

Morning Scene - Homeless in Chicago

As I was walking to work this morning crossing the State Street bridge, I noticed this homeless woman down on the River Walk below. She appeared to be passed out on a bench, but then seemed to be partially conscious as she raised her head and passed out again.

I took a photo of her with a zoom lens, thinking it would make a powerful photo for my “Morning Scene” series. After all, it's a good dose of reality.

Then I got to thinking how dangerous it is for a young woman to be in that situation. Should I call 9-1-1? Would I call 9-1-1 if it had been a man? (No, we see that all the time.)

I did call 9-1-1, saying that she appeared to be in distress, gave the location and they said they would send an ambulance.

I got to work, downloaded the photo and was shocked to see the photo - - there were little bare feet under the blanket. I wanted to cry when I saw that.

See? It’s always better to err on the side of caution.

I hope this woman and her little one get the help they need.

A Thanksgiving Message

I used to work for a large social-service agency in Chicago that also operated a homeless shelter. And every year about this time, we'd get hundreds of calls to the volunteer center from do-gooders wanting to serve Thanksgiving dinner to the residents in the shelter.

We got so many calls on the day before Thanksgiving that several of us had to drop what we were doing just to answer calls in the volunteer center.

I remember one woman wanted to help and when I told her that she could help stock groceries in the pantry, she got upset. She wanted to work with the homeless, serving them food and smiling at them. Other people wanted to bring their children to "help those less fortunate."

I really wanted to tell them all that the residents weren't in a zoo to be on display for their edification.

Every year at Thanksgiving and Christmas, it was the same. We would just be inundated with help. The parking lot would be filled to capacity with SUVs. It was a huge pain in the butt, let me tell you.

Here's a message: If you want to help the homeless shelters at Thanksgiving, stay home! Especially all you presidential candidates.

If you really want to help, then volunteer in February when it's 20 below zero and help unload the produce truck at six in the morning.
Seriously.

Otherwise, stay home and enjoy the football game on your big-screen TV.

. . . I'll return now to my usual postings of humor and frivolity.