05/01/2012
Friends, family, fiends and fans, my foot continues to heal too slowly for what I want to do but if I continue with the bone stim it may prevent having to have very invasive surgery. My One Man March had a board meeting last week and the grand total of funds donated currently sits at just over $7000. Not $1 million but I always knew the $1 million goal was going to be the hardest to achieve. In my opinion, the goal of raising awareness was successfully achieved but the most important goal that I wanted to achieve was to entreat, encourage, beseech and/or inspire individuals to participate in their own communities to solve the problem of hunger and helping homeless PEOPLE. I see hunger and helping homeless PEOPLE as a social problem that demands and deserves a social solution. We can't just pay our taxes and hope that the impersonal, bureaucratic "entitlement programs" will solve the problem for us and consider that our best effort. Supporting programs that attempt to end panhandling by encouraging people to give their spare change to participating businesses instead of to homeless PEOPLE feels like a half-assed effort and just another way of saying I care but I don't have the time or don't want to get my hands dirty actually engaging with homeless PEOPLE. The non-profits and churches that work to serve PEOPLE who are hungry or homeless will always need money but what could really help is having more volunteers to work directly helping homeless PEOPLE in need. Volunteer to fix a leaky sink at the POV or repair a broken handrail or change the oil on one of their vehicles. Come up with new ideas to help. How about developing a Garden Project for homeless PEOPLE like they have in Santa Cruz, CA. I am pretty sure there are lawyers and social workers and tax accountants that worship at churches, synagogues, etc and maybe they can develop a pro-bona program to help homeless PEOPLE get new ID or do their taxes, etc. Wouldn't the time they donate be tax deductible?Do whatever it takes to solve the problem and help homeless People in YOUR community using whatever skills you have. The benefit and dividends will help homeless PEOPLE and you will be rewarded as well. You get what you give, a cliche I know, but seems apropos in this instance.