I've gotten quite a bit of support from folks who agree with me on the panhandler thing. Thank you! Pam said she sometimes will take them inside and get them food and it reminded me of something that happened when Jillian was little. We were exiting a freeway somewhere in SoCal, so she had to have been about 9 or 10, and there was a rather disheveled man standing with a sign that said he was hungry and needed money for food. She wanted to know if we could help him, so we went through the drive-thru at whatever was closest and bought him a meal. We took it back and he cussed me out, with Jillian in the car, for having the gall to bring him food when what he wanted was cash. Well, then why does your sign say you're hungry?? That soured me on giving to the panhandlers, so all the panhandlers of the world that cross my path can blame him for why I don't stop.
I will add though that when I was working in San Francisco it crossed my mind that if I gave to every person who had their hands out on that short little walk from the train to my office, that I would soon be one of them. There was one man who was honestly hungry, and when Martha and I would go to lunch she would always box up what we had left over and give it to him on our way back. I tried that one time when Martha wasn't with me and he gave me the evil eye...so he would only take food from select people and I wasn't one of them. Oh well...
Lots of yarn drying, lots waiting to be skeined, and a bit more waiting to be dyed. Time to dye!!
3 comments:
I had a similar thing happen while waiting on the shuttle one day. A couple approached me with this long, drawn out story of how they were stranded, hadn't eaten in 3 days, needed money to get home...blah, blah, blah. I had just bought a meal to take home that evening for dinner and offered it to them. They turned their noses up at it and wanted cash instead...
Up here in Portland the homeless agencies discourage people from giving panhandlers money as it just encourages more of that. There is a wonderful cafe that you can buy tickets for a meal to hand out to hungry people. they also let anyone that needs a meal t do a little work around the place for their food.
We've only bought food for a few people, and that was when we were in the parking lot of McD's eating and saw them rummaging through the garbage. These people were so overjoyed to get some food that I feel we did the right thing. I agree with Gwen, though - if you give money to everyone who asks, you'll be broke yourself in no time flat. The thing which finally did it for me was when I found out that this is a "job" for some of them. One guy made about $1800 a day - tax-free. He made more than my husband did! After that, we only bought food if it was apparent that they really needed it.
I'm off to knit. I'm tired. Tomorrow starts the big push to get everything done for Sock Summit. ARGH!
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