Williamsburg's Homeless & Indigent

P.O. Box 366, Lightfoot, VA 23090
Office: 757-561-3255
wsmburghomeless@yahoo.com
"Assisting people in re-gaining hope and a better way of life."

Friday, March 14, 2003

As I catch up in my writing about my daily experiences, my logs will be shorter, I hope! But, today was a good day. Not in regards to anyone showing up at our meeting spot, but with the connections I made today and spreading the word about what I am trying to accomplish. I made up some 'business cards' just to be able to leave my phone number and email to those who want to donate or contact me for info. I stopped at a few obvious places that have already been a great help and dropped off a couple of cards to keep on hand, but as I was getting gas at Amoco (corner of Richmond Rd and Monticello) I noticed one of the workers. No she wasn't Homeless, but you could look at her and tell she had a heart. Her smile and warmth showed she was the type of person who would help a stranger. When I went in to pay, I gave her a card and her eyes lit up and said this is wonderful! We started talking and another worker asked for a card and asked if I would accept donations of clothing. They both have a lot of women's clothes they want to give in case I come across any women at the train tracks. Now so far in the past week, I have had several people say "oh yes, I want to help" but I still haven't heard from any of them. But these two women are the types I know will live up to their request to donate. I still asked them to save their milk jugs, even if that was all they could do and left to go to my next stop.

As I was driving to go see my rooster, something compelled me to stop at the fire department. I went in and asked for the Sgt. and when I gave him my card and started my 'speech' he chimed in "this is great! Lately we have been getting several people in here at night. They somehow get together the money for a ticket on the bus to Williamsburg, yet when they get here, they have nowhere to go. We don't know what to do with them." O.K. I thought, my neighbors would run me out of town (actually I had one female say she would kick my butt if this happened and then she looked at me like uh oh what did I just say and immediately 'took it back') if I started bringing Homeless to our house (although we do have a nice size barn in the back that would hold several beds). And since our area doesn't have a shelter (YET) what could we do? But, then I remembered, you never question God on how He is going to handle a situation, you just trust that He will handle it when it happens. "I don't care if it is day or night or what, you call my husband and I and we will come down and figure something out!" Wow did that really come out of my mouth? Now most men would be very upset to know their wife just volunteered them to get out of bed at any given time into their sleep and drive 15 minutes away to pick up some stranger and take them to some sort of safety. Luckily, not Geoff. As opened as his heart is to help others, he can make me seem selfish at times. Besides one day we will have teen-agers and you never know what surprise you are in for in that regard, so it is practice for us.

Afterwards, it was time to drop off food and have a cup of coffee with Chubby and the Gang. When I pulled up to Dunkin Donuts, I didn't see any of them inside, but I did see a lady and two men talking so I went in and as I approached them, I over heard them talking about tithes to the churches. I introduced myself and said since you are talking about tithes, let me give you a card. After 15 minutes of conversation, the lady told me she was just visiting here, but she wanted to get me her card so we can start networking and help each other. She went to her car and when she came back in she handed out pens to each of us, gave me her card and slipped something else into my hand. We left together to go to our cars and I looked to see what it was extra she handed me. Shocked, but grateful, it was a $20 to be put toward food, supplies or gas. However I felt I needed it to benefit the people 'under the train tracks.'

Now these haven't been the first nice kind hearted people I have met since I started, but there was something different about them that renewed my faith of the people in Williamsburg. Who knows, maybe I just might like it here, maybe the people will accept me and the goals I want to achieve for my new friends and maybe we can start a shelter program here for the Homeless.

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