This year’s Heartfelt Holiday Event idea, excitedly birthed at a September MSIA minister’s meeting in Seattle, was to carpool the Sunday of Thanksgiving weekend, distributing food and clothing to homeless people in Seattle neighborhoods. No one in our group knew much about working with the homeless, and the goal of serving 80 people felt ambitious and new. Little did we know what Spirit was creating for us.
Heartfelt Seattle Coordinator, Miriam Reiss, began making calls to stores for donations. When she reached a local Sam’s Club, business manager Gabriele Seals said “Good timing, we’re having a grand reopening, we’ve got a bunch of money to give away. Can you fax your proposal today?” Sam’s Club donated $1,000 which fast forwarded our event planning. Heartfelt Seattle also received unexpected community visibility as we posed at the Veteran’s Day reopening ceremony, accepting the oversized cardboard check from Sam’s Club.
As word got out, donations began arriving from California and Oregon friends of the Heartfelt community. With the event slated for a holiday weekend, it became clear that more volunteers were needed. Once again, Spirit came through, this time in the form of Joanne Conger. Not only had Joanne worked for a homeless women’s shelter for 5 years, she had been homeless herself for 3 years. With a deep commitment to working with the homeless, Joanne had all the experience and resources we were missing. She was promptly recruited as Event Team Captain.
As planning progressed, we learned that food was less of an issue for the homeless during the holidays than supplies. A 17-item “hygiene kit” idea evolved. It would contain facecloth, shampoo, toothpaste/toothbrush, lotion, can opener, warm hat, long socks, gum, chocolates, and more. Joanne said each of these items was considered “gold” by the homeless.
With volunteer numbers growing and donations now approaching $1,900, it was time to rethink the “drive by” idea. An arrangement was made to distribute donated goods at the Downtown Emergency Service Center (DESC), a downtown shelter serving 1,000 of the most vulnerable homeless, those who are often older and turned down by other shelters.
Distribution handled, donations in place, it was now time to shop. Spirit had fun here. High quality terry facecloths were found at 50% off, and the store manager took off another 20%. The candies marked $2.99 magically rang in as $1.49 at the register, and then the price was knocked down further. With the contact at one store not available, the substitute manager came in and doubled that store’s donation. Joanne, veteran shopper for the homeless, was amazed at how far our dollars were stretching.
The day before the event, Seattle Heartfelt volunteer Lucy Dickinson and her father picked up cases of donated bananas along with large quantities of roast beef, turkey, cheese, and crackers. Joanne’s eyes glowed at the meat, “The homeless get beans for protein every night at these shelters. They never get food like this, this is a very rare treat.”
Sunday morning arrived. Heartfelt nametags, coffee and homemade coffeecake ready, 15 volunteers packed into Miriam’s living room. There were families with teenagers, grandmothers, and friends of friends. Each picked an angel card for the day and received a CD as a thank you, originally made to raise money for homeless women, courtesy of Joanne. The room buzzed, as new friends were made. In an amazing hour, one hundred fifty 17-item kits were assembled, complete with ribbons.
Arriving at the downtown shelter, volunteers were escorted to a large multi-purpose room where several people were already lining up to receive goods. Some Heartfelt volunteers stood behind a kitchen counter, individually handing out goodie kits and food. The rest went into the throng of people, bringing trays of food and clothing to those in wheelchairs. The meats and cheeses were greeted with great fanfare, as were the chocolates. It was a joy to behold.
During distribution, several people came up to personally thank Heartfelt volunteers. People wanted to know who we were, where we came from. One said, “You’re from a church, aren’t you?” When we said, “No,” he said, “Well, you are no matter what you say, you’re a church. This all comes from God.” One of the recipients said he was from Australia and an entertainer, and sang us a song he’d written.
With the last cookie gone, it was time to go. As we worked our way through the long room, to our surprise, the 200 or so people present began standing and waving goodbyes, yelling “thank you” and “God
bless you,” with waves of applause as we passed by the many rows of tables. This, from a population considered to be dangerous and in survival mode.
Outside, DESC staff member Nicole remarked, “I haven’t seen folks smiling and laughing like they did today in months.” And from team captain Joanne, “In all my years of volunteering for the homeless, I’ve never seen a group of volunteers who jumped in and participated so enthusiastically and at such a high level, or an event that was received like this by the homeless.” It was a wonderful party, thanks to Spirit. Baruch Bashan.
