My Name is Nathaniel

About a week ago Sandra, Madison, her boyfriend Spencer Cook and I went on a double date to the Pie Pizzeria in Salt Lake near the U.  It's one of our favorites.  Anyway after dinner we had about a half of pizza in left overs, we out it in a to go box and started home.  As we were driving to the freeway, Spencer said that he had a tradition after eating at the Pie with friends to give their left overs to the homeless or needy that blanket the downtown streets and parks.  "What a great idea", I said, "lets do it"! As we were driving we saw these three people bundled together in blankets near the park corner.  We pulled over and Spencer got out and handed them the pizza box.  Their faces lit up with smiles and as the lady opened the box and seeing the delicious Pie Pizza inside she literally began jumping up and down with excitement!  This totally made our night & apparently theirs as well.

Today is Sunday morning and we wanted to do a service project.  We discussed several ideas, then I combined a lot of their ideas and said, "How about we make sack lunches and give them out to the homeless"?  They were all excited, Ashton & I quickly ran to the store to get supplies and then put together snack bags while Elisabeth began baking cookies (her specialty), Madison started writing personal notes on the outsides of all the lunch sacks, Spencer laid out a long row of great harvest wheat bread and made sandwiches and Hunter put all the bags together: Peanut butter Sandwich, Apple juice, a baggie full of Annie's Boom-Chika-Pop Sweet Popcorn or Ritz Toasted Chips, a granola bar and a baggie with two amazing chocolate cookies all with a sweet individual handwritten message to brighten their day.  We also got several boxes of large muffins to give out to areas with lots of people as we might encounter.

We drove into Salt Lake and stopped at a small park right off the 4th street exit.  This park had several homeless scattered around.  Each of the kids took one of their two filled lunch sacks with them.  They were each responsible for choosing and giving away their own sacks.  The first person we came across was sleeping with a cheap thin blue blanket covering his face and body.  Spencer quietly set the lunch, message facing toward him and respectfully moved on.  Ashton met a sweet old man with white hair and long wild beard.  His face immediately turned into a smile as he graciously took his gift.  Within minutes he had found himself a comfortable spot and began enjoy his unexpected fortune.  Elisabeth gave her first lunch sack to an emaciated old man looking through a garbage can for food and supplies.  Hunter found another person sleeping near a wall at the public restrooms, he too quietly left it near him to be found when he woke up.  Madison gave her's to a red-faced forty year old lady wrapped in several blankets to keep warm.  We came across a small play ground where we gave away several large muffins to a group sitting on park benches and wheel chairs.  There was also a younger lady, maybe upper thirties, clearly homeless and destitute sitting alone in a swing with the saddest lost expression on her face.  We offered her our food, to which she declined and turned her head to look away from us ending our conversation.  We walked away saddened by the pain, loss, depression that she was dealing with all alone.  So many hurt and suffer in this world, sometimes because of the choices they've made, but more often due to poor circumstances, luck, mental health challenges or lack of love and support.  Our hearts broke at how much need we saw and truthfully how little even our best intensions were actually going to help anyone?

On our way to give out our last sack to a young man sleeping in a old tennis court his crack head of a girlfriend came running toward us swearing and cussing, "We don't want your bag, get that out of here!" Then this other old guy began swearing and yelling at her for stealing his blanket and taking his crack!!  Then the two of them just went off on each other saying the foulest things at the top of their lungs.  Through this the boyfriend rose up eyeing the lunch sack and wishing he could have it but didn't want to risk the wrath of his controlling girlfriend.  We quickly made some distance.  On our way back to the car Spencer decided to go back to where he had left his sack.  He gently woke him and told him what he had brought him.  The man sat up, bewildered by the kind gesture and began to tell us about his life.  He was a refugee from the Sudan.  He missed his family and has not had a lot of luck here in our country.  As he talked to Spencer tears welled up in his eyes.  He concluded the conversation by saying, "My name is Nathaniel".

We returned to our car touched by this experience and drove out looking for more to serve.  We quickly saw the difficulty of knowing who was in need, who was homeless or hungry?  We didn't want to offend by assuming or judging others on the basis of their clothes or cleanliness.  Passing by Temple Square we saw a lady begging for money.  Spencer jumped out and took her a meal.  They talked for a long time, but ultimately she refused our food due to food allergies and medical conditions.  She came up to our window after and profusely thank us for thinking of her and offering her a gift and wished us well. 

We continued up the street toward Memory Grove park when we saw an older couple sitting on a park bench with a tell-tale homeless shopping cart filled with all their earthly possessions, so Madison and Elisabeth got out and brought them both a lunch sack.  They couldn't have been more thrilled and sweet.  The four of them talked for several minutes and out to the blue the old man resembling Santa Clause wearing a multi-colored turban pulled out a trumpet and began just tooting his horn.  No music, just loud blasts of noise, like he was calling in the infantry.  He just laughed and was taken away by the sweetness of these two girls.

After a little more driving we ended up at the frontrunner downtown station.  We met a guy searching through the rocks near the curb and asked if he wanted some food.  He was really excited to talk to us and gladly took our food.  He then became transfixed on my car's navigation screen.  He declared, "that's like the world on there!  I get it, you can see the circumference of the angles as they traverse the poles, yeah like there (pointing at something on the map) the north pole and over there, yeah I get it!"  He again thanked us and we continued on.

We drove all the way to liberty park, but there wasn't anyone there (probably because it was so cold). Thinking we should probably head back as we were about to get on the freeway entrance we saw two younger men, probably in their twenties begging for change.  Ashton and Spencer got out and brought them their last two sacks.  Their teeth were rotted and one looked like he had been blitzed the night before, but they both graciously accepted out lunches with warm smiles and a handshake.  Hunter gave our last lunch sack away to a forty something lady without teeth wearing all pink sweats and probably weighing under 100 pounds.  She too gratefully took our gift.  We were out of lunch sacks, but still have about a dozen muffins, so we drove toward the homeless shelter where Madison and Spencer quickly handed them all out.  They met one small group who were so nice to them.  It was one of their birthdays and he was so grateful for the birthday visit.  He said, "How about a birthday kiss!"  Madison replied with a big smile, "How about a birthday muffin instead?!"

We all returned to the car uplifted to have made a small difference in the life of others today.  I am sure the city has sources that provide shelter and food and that our small act probably won't change or save anyone's life, but at least for one small moment, they might have felt noticed and loved and if nothing else, we are all better today for trying to love and serve others.