Help Out a Hungry Stranger

Hello friends out there in writing and poetry land, I was reading an article by Inna T. about helping others in our community with the economy in the crapper as it has been lately. The piece made me do some hard thinking. Just Yesterday afternoon, we went to Rite Aid to buy a bottle of an adult beverage, we’re not rich by any stretch, but we saw a family with two adults and three young kids sitting on the curb with a sign that said homeless.

I almost fell to tears. San Diego has actually been hit harder than most due to the high cost of living here and we have the highest home foreclosure rate in the country.

My little valley community is one of the cheapest to live in in SD County, and we see this all the time.

If any of you have been following my and Westbrook’s recent comments, you know many veterans live here.

The sad thing is that we have an exceptionally high number of homeless in our community, many disabled vets.

Now my little city of El Cajon, we all pitch in for the most part and help these folks. I am myself not working, but that’s a whole different story. I no longer drive, so I do a lot of walking, and know a great many of these people. Yes, they can be a little dirty, but they have no choice.

So I’ll tell what I do; I sit and talk with them sometimes, and they are good down to earth people just like you and I. There is nothing wrong with them, and most are very decent human beings, and they suffer from a form of racism stereotyping that many have fallen victim to. This is just wrong. Here’s an eye opening statistic for you……over 90% of the population in this county are one paycheck away from being homeless.

One paycheck away, but that was before this disastrous downturn in the economy.

So, I don’t know about the rest of you, but where I live, a great way to help these people exists.

All you have to do to help keep them alive is to go to the store, buy a few loaves of bread, some bologna or lunchmeat, cheese, mayonnaise, whatever, go make a few dozen sandwiches and pass them out.

If this is not the case in your geographical area, donate 10 loaves of bread to a local charity.

People literally are starving right before our eyes, and stupid human pride often gets in the way when you or someone else needs a helping hand.

So step up to the plate people if you can, and help a downed brother or sister out. That and just a warm conversation for a few short moments can revive their will to live.

It will renew faith that the good in human spirit and good will toward others still exists in this crummy world today. Holiday times are very hard on these folks, the Lord works in mysterious ways, so feel free to let him work through you.

God Bless, and God Bless those of whom I speak also.