Yelling behind my Jeep!

Tuesday night I grabbed a campsite at a good size state park on the coast of Oregon. I woke up early Wednesday morning because a boy was yelling pretty loudly behind my Jeep. He yelled to his brother or buddy, “Turnaround! Turnaround! Look at this!” He continued, “This guy drives around and gives food to homeless people! That is so cool!” 

What a way to start of my day and encourage me! If I was totally awake I would’ve got out of my Jeep and given them a couple of my toy Jeeps. 

When I first started this trip a couple months ago somebody on Facebook who didn’t know everything about my mission trip questioned how I can make people aware of homelessness by driving across the country in an expensive Jeep.  Question answered I guess. 

When I’m driving down the road I get so many thumbs up.  People in parking lots and at gas stations stop at my Jeep and asked me about my mission. Last night a gentleman came by my campsite and we discussed the homeless situation in the North West. He came back later and blessed me with a donation for my mission trip. 

Back in the mid-80s I worked for the 99 Restaurants in Massachusetts. The owner at the time, Charlie Doe, was passionate about helping homeless. Each one of his 25 stores would have fundraisers for the Pine Street Inn in Boston. He would encourage employees to volunteer also. I fundraised and volunteers at Christmas for a few years. Charlie has since passed but his three sons are passionate about helping the homeless also. They have been supporting our food pantry for three years.  We give food to 200 families every Thursday.

Throughout the years I try to do what I can to help the homeless. As well as being trained to work at shelters I donate clothes and food. When my kids were younger ever once and a while I would suggest we buy a couple pizzas for a local shelter not to far from us rather than going to the movies. They were on board! I would have them bring the pizzas into the shelter.

Years later when Kyle was older he text me one morning that he just gave his granola bar to homeless person at the train station in Lynn. He continues to buy meals for the homeless.

I sit on the Board of Directors of our churches nonprofit, Good Hope. I was running our African well program for quite a few years and passed the baton to somebody else last year so I could start a homeless care program for Good Hope.  Last year we stated preparing meals monthly for local shelters.

This trip is also about research to see first hand what’s working and not working to reduce homelessness and help the homeless. I hope to be able to develop local and maybe national programs to help reduce homelessness and help those who are homeless. 

I am on my way to San Francisco. Donations have already been sent into the city. Twenty-one cities to go and four months to go. Thanks for all your encouragement, support and prayers! Couldn’t do this without you!