Week 17 Rainy Day Special

This week I did Lunch Bunch alone after work. My mom made a ton of delicious soup that had tender beef and a variety of veggies! She cooked the soup all day to get the perfect flavors and soft veggies. I was able to fill twenty four 16 oz containers. The soup was boiled before I packed it so they wouldn’t lose too much heat before they were delivered. The soup consisted of: spinach, cabbage, carrots, tomatoes, potatoes, celery, squash, white onion, red onion, chicken broth and lean beef chunks.

paper soup containers

Dropping off the soup alone wasn’t hard at all; everyone was so receptive to the warm goodness. It had been rainy and cold, so the warm food was appreciated. When I went to the blanket community to deliver the soup no one was there. Some of the people moved a block to where a man lives in his car. They needed proper shelter, their blankets were soaked. Also in the alley there were new people settling in.

I kept some in heat bags so that they wouldn't get cold by the time I went into downtown.

This is what driving into down town looked like, cold and dreary!

By the time I got to downtown I had given out 12 of the 24 soups. I made sure to get all of the regulars in down town, they were surprised to have homemade soup and I was happy about their reaction. I stopped to give this very warm couple some soup and the man was very happy to see me and was asking where Ana was. He wanted me to promise to call Ana and let him know he said “hello”. They are a great couple o chat with, nothing can keep them from smiling- not even the rain pouring over them.

I found our LA woman setting up her sleeping area, I was able to park and go chat with her. I found out more info about her and it was great to feel her being so open. She is special to me, the fact that she came here to find a better life and ended up having to live on the street, but she can still smile and hold her head up shows she has great strength.

Since I was already parked I packed up the last few containers of soup and went walking down the street to deliver it to some people who were setting up their beds or who were just hungry. Being on my feet walking towards people felt great, normally in downtown we usually just drive to people.

Seeing what the rain did to people’s homes, clothes and spirits was very hard. There were tons more homeless people out than normal. It was hard to know I couldn’t help them; I can’t give them a warm or dry place to sleep. It is hard to realize that someone that you just talked to is going to have to sleep out in the wet cold and that they could get very sick.