Hey everyone!
Turkey day is rapidly approaching and I have to say it is one of my most favorite holidays. It might have something to do with the fact that I love to eat and always put my diet on hold during the season to enjoy Thanksgiving as much as possible. My reasoning for this is that I am extremely thankful for how fortunate I am to be able to stuff my face and spend time with my family. So my weight cutting for wrestling can wait. Sorry Coach.
As I said, I am extremely thankful for all the things I have: heated house, a great family, warm clothes, food, clean water, great friends, an amazing girlfriend, and a caring church among other things. Many people are not as fortunate as I am and Thanksgiving usually reminds me of these people more than any other time of year. This week is Homelessness Awareness Week and the College of Mount St Joseph is hosting a week full of events to share homeless perspectives with the students and the rest of the community.
The week starts with a representative speaker from the Greater Cincinnati Coalition for the Homeless. Homeless experiences will be shared, followed by a question/answer session about life on the streets. “Street Vibes”, a newspaper written by the homeless of Cincinnati, will also be available. Tuesday, the movie “Dark Days” will be shown. This film is biographical documentary about homeless who live in abandoned tunnels in New York. Then Wednesday, the Mount’s Quad will turn into Shantytown. Students will make shelters out of cardboard in the Quad and participate in a mock soup kitchen. Then the students will actually spend the night in their cardboard shacks outside in the elements! The week ends with a candlelight vigil in Shantytown on Thursday night and a reflection on connections between homelessness and our faith and how we are called to help the homeless.
This whole week will hopefully raise awareness of the seriousness of the homeless situation, not only in Cincinnati, but all over the country, especially when so many jobs are being terminated these days. I know I’m going to try to make an effort to help out in some way. I’m not too sure how just yet, I’m involved in a small food drive type event at my church that is gathering items to host a Thanksgiving dinner for needy families, but I’d like to do a little more. I would like to call on any of you reading this to try to help out a little as well. Any little thing helps.
Let me give you an example of something my cousin, Paige, did a few months ago. Paige took about forty bucks and bought a handful of gift cards to Arby’s. She took the gift cards downtown and just walked around. If she crossed paths with a homeless person, she would ask them if they liked Arby’s and give them a gift card. Then she would hang out and talk with the people and get to know them a little. She heard some pretty crazy stories along with some real heartbreakers. Paige has done this a few times now and it has gotten to the point where if she’s downtown, she has people coming up to her and thanking her for the gift cards and the meal they purchased with them.
I have a lot of respect for my cousin for doing this and I hope that I can find the time and money to do something half as decent as what she did. I challenge you to do something too!
Have a great week!
>Eric M.