Saturday Night food drop 14th June 2014

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Saturday nights outreach was a massive success, we all left buzzing from what a fantastic night it was with the rough sleepers, everyone was in good spirits.

Mum cooked vegetable curry in two large pots. We boxed it up into the foil boxes and has 36 meals ready. Thorlak and Kerry had made sandwiches and Emma had bagged up biscuits, cakes and chocolate. We also had lots of fruit, the rough sleepers are going crazy for banana's right now. 

The car was packed full of bags of clothes that we have donated. We had everything that was possibly needed from smart suit jackets to simple jogging bottoms. We get some strange requests and were never sure what people want, one man was so happy with his suit jacket he laughed he would be the best dressed homeless man in town.

The tea's and coffee's were hot and ready to go... all we needed to do now was jump in the car, pick up Emma and head to town.

On arriving in town we met Tracey and her husband along with her 19 year old daughter and her boyfriend, they were there to help for the very first time. Kaylee had also come to help, we had a quick chat about everything we would be doing. I went over simple safeguarding rules, boundaries and just gave them simple instructions about what would go on tonight.

To be honest, theres not much to say. Its pretty self explanatory. The homeless aren't bad people, their extremely grateful for our help and were very safe around them.

On arrival a few guys came to the car to help us carry everything and help us set up. Once we reached the meeting point there was about 15 people already waiting us, eager to have chats, get a hot drink and eat a nice meal.

We soon had everything set up along the wall in a nice little production line.

Emma and Thorlak were handing out sandwiches and biscuits first, I was handing out hot meals and cutlery, Tracey and Tony were organizing hot drinks and Kaylee was organizing the clothes. Kerry was walking around being the photographer and Mum (Rachel) was milling around making sure everything was running smoothly.

With every meal we handed out we received big warm friendly hugs and wide smiles thanking us for making the effort and caring so much. Over time I have come to know all the people we see, so its great to see them so happy, and in such high spirit's.

Jessie came and told me Stevie couldn't make it because he was so poorly. He was being sick and could barely move. Stevie has just been told he has less than a year to live, he has cancer, and its taken over his whole body. Jessie was very upset. I handed her four meals, one for her, one for Stevie, one for nick and one for their friend ash, they all stay together and they look after each other especially Stevie.

Colin came along and gave me and Emma a big hug and said he was pleased to see us, he had only seen us yesterday but nonetheless he was pleased to see us. He was his usual happy smiley self and was enjoying the food a lot.

Matt and Josie came along for some food and to help us. Josie put on a little fashion show for everyone trying on the clothes and modelling some new dresses. She was so happy, so carefree, so pleased to have new clothes and so pleased to have us all in her life. Shes going through a hard time right now so it was great to see her so carefree and giggling.

We had loads of our regulars and we had a few newbies. Theres two new brothers in town, both who are selling the big issue. I had told them to come a few days before and they were so pleased they did. They got to leave with new sleeping bags and new clothes. They were cold at night so were planning on sleeping in two sleeping bags. Both brothers are clean, there no longer using heroin. They are doing their best to save the money they make from selling the big issue to get a deposit for a small flat, they'd like to get off the streets and start to live a more normal life now. 

All our rough sleepers left with new items of clothes. We had bags and bags full of things for them to choose from. The thing with living on the streets is that they need a never ending flow of new clothes. Living on the streets their clothes are getting so dirty, they tend to get a new outfit each week and dump the last outfit because its so dirty. With just a backpack there's not much room to carry much clothes. We are always looking for clothes, if you can donate any that would be fab. 

We always have dogs come to the food drop or we see them on our walks, many homeless people have dogs as they are a companion, a best friend, they dont judge you. We always carry dog food and I love dogs so theres always photos of me cuddling dogs.

Our food drop lasted about 2.5 hours because more and more people kept on turning up. Soon enough we had run out of hot meals and were just handing out sandwiches, biscuits, crisps and chocolate along with hot drinks and juice. No one moaned, they were happy to have anything to eat. It started to rain so we all ran for shelter but many of the rough sleepers stayed with us to the end and we just chatted and talked about how the world goes round. 

After our food drop we set off on our outreach walk to hand out the rest of the sandwiches we had. Sadly there were no hot meals for the people sat on the streets in the rest of town, but there will be, we will make sure theres a lot more hot meals from now on. When we started we were only feeding 10 people on a night. 

We bumped into Paul, who deserves a whole blog post to himself, so watch this space ! 

Kerry and Thorlak carried on the outreach with Kerry and Me, Emma and Mum (rachel) were with paul.

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