The following is shared with permission by a Toledo First writer who helped us help the homeless during Tent City last weekend. Names are not real.We got down to Tent City a little after 11:00 am. It took awhile to get comfortable, if you could get comfortable there. I finally just dove into the clothing tent. What can I do? BAGS and BAGS of clothes lay on the floor. They needed to be sorted by size. So I'm ripping open the bags, placing them on the table and I would turn around and they would be gone. Put out more. The "good" clothes went the fastest. Jeans, hooded sweatshirts etc. I found out that socks are like gold and can be used for bartering. I was amazed. We kept socks behind the counter because we could only give out 2 per "customer."
Two women stand out to me. Val was late 20's I think. I was helping her find a few things in her size. Then I noticed her yellow bag was getting full [she had everything crammed down in it] so I asked her if she needed another bag and she said yes. I gave her another plastic grocery bag. But then I remembered I had seen a thin cheap ProMedica tote bag. You know the kind companies give away with their name plastered all over? I said, "Oh, wait I saw a bag with handles!" Mike, you would have thought I had given her a leather hand bag! She quickly dumped her items out, put in her shoes first and from there it just got filled up with her stuff. She kept saying over and over "This is so great of you guys, thank you, thank you...Oh this is nice it has handles..." She's someone's daughter and her life is in a Promedica bag.
Barb is about 60 I'd say. She wasn't eating and I asked her if she was ok and did she need anything. Turns out she has a tumor in her stomach. She's getting it checked out NEXT MONTH when the Dr. comes by the YWCA where she lives. She's lost weight because she can't eat. She can't eat anything that is hard to digest. Hello, Chili and Pizza is not what she could eat. I felt so bad. All she wanted is something she could digest. I told her to just eat a little of everything and eat slowly and maybe it wouldn't hurt her stomach. I got her some fruit, bread and potato salad. She ate the bread and a bite or two of the salad. She didn't eat the apple because of a toothache she had. She's waiting to see another Dr. for that. She's probably someone's Mom and she's living at the YWCA...I am just amazed....
Oh and about the trash cans. Cardboard boxes with the black liners in them. The clear bags go into the black liners. I saw people taking the black liners out of the emptied trash cans. I didn't realize at first, I thought they were ripped or whatever and this guy is helping...I found out later that if you leave a thick black trash can liner just for the taking. It will be taken! As I was leaving I saw a "helper" with a huge roll of thick black trash can liners, just passing them out to anyone who wanted one. WOW, a clean black bag! Who would have thought?
The people were very nice and more than one thanked me for coming to help but honestly I felt like I was the one being helped. I was amazed by how nice they were. So polite. Not that I thought they'd be "different", maybe just a little more bitter than they were. I guess that is what I didn't see, bitterness.
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