Panhandling and Beerfest in Mobile....
I feel uncomfortable asking people for money. To raise money for Costa Rica, Relay for Life, and the Maryland Special Olympics this past year I sent out letters. Letters are pieces of paper that people can ignore. No one is feeling pressured or insulted that I am sending them a letter.
But this morning we are going to hold signs and walk up to peoples cars in West Mobile asking for money. I am beyond uncomfortable with this activity. We are separated into pairs, I am with Mary P. on one of the busier corners at the four way intersection. I walk up and down the turn lane and Mary P. takes care of the other three lanes. It's also raining...and we're carrying paper signs...
Mary P. got a $20 bill while I am awkwardly smiling at people hoping they'll give me something, anything. Slowly people began to roll down their windows and give me the change in their ash trays or a few dollars. As the morning went on I became more comfortable.
Some people would put down their window and ask what we were doing. It was a white area and we all looked like nice white kids, maybe we reminded them of their kids. My sign read "$1 provides 4 showers" My sign did not say homeless. We were raising money for 15 Place, the homeless day shelter Megan works for. Some people would ask and didn't like the answer I gave. I wonder if someone has the money in their hand and finds out they don't want to support "those people" you are raising money for, will they tell you? Or at that point are they in too deep to turn back.
I was surprised to hear how many people had never heard of 15 Place...But it made me think...do I know the name of the shelters in Bridgeport CT, where I have lived for 18 years? How about the shelters in Washington, DC...I've lived there for the last 4 years. In Bridgeport I can point out the soup kitchens I've volunteered at, and I can do the same in DC but I don't know much more than that.
I also started to think about how I would respond if I were driving and someone was collecting money at my window. I would probably do what many people did to me, look straight ahead or pull out my cell phone and continue my "phone call." This experience really makes me think about how I have acknowledged asking for money and the causes that need money. $1 for 15 Place can provide 5 meals, $1 at 15 Place can pay for 3 showers. $1...think about how little you really notice $1 missing, but how one shower can help a person apply for a job or maintain their employment. $1 means more to me today than it did yesterday.
We raised $350. Eight people at one intersection for 2 hours raised $350, that will be 1750 meals, but better yet there was a grant that would match each dollar we raised with $5. That means in two hours, at one intersection, with eight people...we raised $1,750, which will provide 7,850 meals...That was two hours of my time on a Saturday morning.
What did you do Saturday morning from 9am - 11am, because I helped feed 7,850 people!
After the 15 Place fundraiser we went to a picnic with the L'Arche community. It was honestly such a rewarding day. It is wonderful being able to learn what my fellow community members do and how their jobs intertwine with my job.
We had a little bit of down time between events before we embarked on our first Mobile Beerfest. Beerfest deserves its own blog entry. It is 30 bars in downtown who has 3 signature beers. You buy a $20 ticket and can go to each place to sample their beers. You are 3 hours to make it count. We made it count! We started at 1 and ended at 20, but we skipped about 5 on our way because of long lines or lack of interest in the beers.
After Beerfest ended at 9, we were in piano bar where Mary P. and Matt met us. It was such a great time and I loved spending it with my community.
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