Day 17

SafeHouse has already become one of my favorite places to go help out. Raksha and I took advantage of the holiday and went during the day today to help some kids from an elementary school give out food. We started by walking to some of the local parks to invite people to have lunch with us. The kids did a great job with asking everyone to come to SafeHouse and really put a smile on a lot of people's faces.

When we got back to SafeHouse the tables were set up for lunch. Everyone was invited inside and asked to take a seat while the kids served them sandwiches and kool aid. We walked around and spent some time talking to different people. The stage was then opened up for people to come up and sing/recite poetry. A couple of people sang for everyone - they were really good and, when I spoke to them later, they told me they already had one cd out and were going to work on their next one soon! Another gentleman came up and recited some beautiful poetry. While another came up and did a rap - before he started he told me he'd give us the clean version. His rap was something else! I was paying attention to the lyrics (it was about his journey from South Carolina and life on the streets) and they made so much sense - the whole thing was put together really well! The last guy that came up also did some poetry for us but he started by asking the group for four words (if you read Dona's post from Day 14, this is the same guy). He would then use those four words in his poem. He did two of these for us and, to answer Dona's question from when she met him, the poems were different :)

Raksha and I also met Tippy  - I think she's a Terrier mix - and her owner on our walk around the city. They both made it to the lunch and Raksha spent some time playing with and feeding Tippy, as well as giving her owner some tips on caring for Tippy.

Overall, another wonderful day of giving! I'd like to say a big thank you to Raksha, Kenny, Victor, and Simone for coming out today - you guys are awesome!!