My Universe City coworker D. and I were eating lunch, sitting in a park in Gone West, the same park where I used to spend all my (non-rainy) lunch hours when I lived here. A group of kids came by and I said, "There are always school groups in this park."
"Those are Boy Scouts," he said.
"There is a girl, though," I said.
"Oh, yeah, there is. But they are doing some sort of service project," he said.
We watched the Boy Scouts (more accurately: the Boy Scouts' leaders) take scarves out of an old-lady type grocery pull cart and give them to a group of young possibly-homeless* guys sitting in a park across the way. The most prominent scarf was baby blue and white, more a receiving blanket than a scarf by its color.
"A friend of mine was once waiting for a bus in downtown [Gone West]," D. said, "and a project like that came by. They gave him some gloves, and he just said thank you and put them on."
We watched the kids and their leaders make a circle and then come past us. I was hoping they would offer us scarves, but I guess our dress coats and clean shoes, not to mention our non-scavenged restaurant lunches, gave us away.
* This would be my biggest concern if I were doing this type of project. How would you know who would appreciate it and who would be offended? It involves making assumptions that people need your help, and I don't like assuming that.
"Those are Boy Scouts," he said.
"There is a girl, though," I said.
"Oh, yeah, there is. But they are doing some sort of service project," he said.
We watched the Boy Scouts (more accurately: the Boy Scouts' leaders) take scarves out of an old-lady type grocery pull cart and give them to a group of young possibly-homeless* guys sitting in a park across the way. The most prominent scarf was baby blue and white, more a receiving blanket than a scarf by its color.
"A friend of mine was once waiting for a bus in downtown [Gone West]," D. said, "and a project like that came by. They gave him some gloves, and he just said thank you and put them on."
We watched the kids and their leaders make a circle and then come past us. I was hoping they would offer us scarves, but I guess our dress coats and clean shoes, not to mention our non-scavenged restaurant lunches, gave us away.
* This would be my biggest concern if I were doing this type of project. How would you know who would appreciate it and who would be offended? It involves making assumptions that people need your help, and I don't like assuming that.
1 comment:
re your "*" comment. one time i took a group of high school students out in downtown detroit to give bag lunches to people who needed one. we started to struggle with the same problem... "will we offend people if we walk up and ask them if they need a free lunch?" then one of my students had a great idea. he just started walking up and down the streets, approaching no one in particular and shouting (much like a guy who works in a baseball park) "free bag lunch! come and get it! free bag lunch!" and then he made eye contact with people as he said it, as if to say "come up here! i'm serious!" it worked like a charm (at least in our situation and context.) i think the fact that he was a squirmy 13 year old helped, too. he didn't seem too intimidating and his sincerity came through. we had a couple of people come up to us and say "i'm not homeless, but i am really broke, can i have a lunch?" to which we said of course! to the rest of the kids that weren't as able to do the shouting i just said "look, i feel that the benefit of getting lunches to truly hungry people far outweighs the potential problems of approaching people who don't need it. if someone looks at you weird, just say that you've been told to ask everybody." :)
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