Taking Care of the Homeless….
Soo…..hi!
I’m not going to go into where I’ve been. If you ever adulted before, you know adulting can get really hard.
And procrastination is a terrible thing.
But for a change up in my normal content here, I would like to talk about something I’ve been working on: helping the homeless.
God usually places it on my heart to do something to take care of the homeless, and to be honest, sometimes I struggle with it. Not the thought of giving, but the deciding of what is good enough to give. My thought is, if you are tasked with taking care of someone, you want to give them the best. I would never give anyone something that I wouldn’t want, that I couldn’t see myself using. But can these pockets afford to give away luxury items? Not yet lol.
The first set of bags I gave away I was pretty happy with. Being a former Ipsy subscriber (Ipsy is a monthly makeup subscription), I had dozens of these tiny, but durable, bags, just lying around my house. I read an article that interviewed homeless people to see what it was that they really needed, and I filled those bags with some of the items that were listed. I cannot remember how many bags I created, but they were all filled with lip balms, first aid kits, travel aspirins, and came with a side of long socks.
Yes, socks.
I was actually not fully satisfied with the socks, I had ordered them online, and they were not as soft as I wanted them to be….and they could have been a little bit thicker. But the country was in the middle of the pandemic, and trying to figure out how to return 60 pairs of socks was not on my list of attainable goals. I knew I was being too picky. And honestly, everyone I gave the socks to genuinely were happy to get them. Which was a shock to me. I was expecting to get the side eye every time I handed them out, but whoever got socks was happy.
Am I secretly still on the hunt for better socks? 🙂
So for this set of bags, I wanted to try to improve upon things. Instead of small bags, I ordered a bunch of drawstring backpacks with a reflective strip on it, so if anyone is walking around in the dark, they could be seen. I also found out about compression washcloths, so I ordered a bunch of those for the kits, as well as the all important bottle of hand sanitizer. Speaking to a good friend of mine, (thanks Destiny), I checked out my nearby dollar and twenty five cents store, and picked up first aid kits (that were thankfully less bulky than the ones I originally gave out), individually wrapped face masks, deodorant, and a few travel toothbrushes with toothpaste. I went to Target and Meijer to grab the rest of the travel toothbrush/toothpaste combos, and I packed everything up.
Am I fully, 100%, happy with it? No. I want to fill these bags to the brim with goodies and snacks. I want to put in food vouchers. I want restaurants to come up with a voucher system for free meals so that if the homeless are hungry they don’t have to worry about having exact change to get a nice meal. I want to include cash money, so they can get things they want to get instead of only having to deal with what they’ve been given.
I don’t want them to be homeless.
But until all of those issues can be addressed, I will put the resources God has given me together to take care of His people.
If someone is reading this, and wants to know how to take care of the homeless in their area, here are some tips.
Look up articles that discuss what homeless people really need.
Go to your local shelter and ask them what they are low on. Go buy that, and bring it to them. It’s usually toiletries such as shampoo, conditioner, lotion, facial cleanser, things of that nature.
Volunteer. You never know how helpful it is to have a spare set of hands on deck.
Donate to food banks.
If you have any ideas for items that I could add to my bags for the next session (who knows where the good socks are?!?!), please write it in the comments below. I am going to sprinkle in blogs amongst my normal content (lol….normal), so, let me know what you think!
Ttyl,
-CB
