A small band of volunteers arrived at Las Animas Park in Gilroy
before 8 a.m. Thanksgiving morning. Their mission: to serve
breakfast to the homeless and anyone who might be down on their
luck this holiday season. It was a different kind of tailgate party
they set up as they unloaded ham and cheese skewers, hard boiled
eggs, fruit, muffins, biscotti, and five batches of cinnamon rolls
they had made the night before.
A small band of volunteers arrived at Las Animas Park in Gilroy before 8 a.m. Thanksgiving morning. Their mission: to serve breakfast to the homeless and anyone who might be down on their luck this holiday season. It was a different kind of tailgate party they set up as they unloaded ham and cheese skewers, hard boiled eggs, fruit, muffins, biscotti, and five batches of cinnamon rolls they had made the night before.
As they set up a hand washing station and tables of donated cold weather gear – such as coats, gloves, blankets, and scarves –they kept an eye on a van in the parking lot. It was obvious that someone was sleeping in it. They’d been there a couple of hours when the van’s occupants finally fired up the engine.
“My daughter and I walked over and the driver. A man of maybe 30, cautiously rolled the window down,” said Alene Creager, one of the volunteers. “We told him we were having a community breakfast, had a lot of food and we’d like them to join us.
“There was a woman in the passenger seat, and she was clearly uncomfortable. She was holding a baby bottle. there were two young children in the back. The woman kept shaking her head slightly as if to say no. The husband was looking at her and saying something we couldn’t hear. Finally he said rather gruffly ‘Why not?’ She spat out, ‘Why do you think? I’m embarrassed!'”
They are the face of the newly homeless in Gilroy.
“We encouraged them some more, told them there was nothing to be embarrassed about – we were just having breakfast and we had way too much food. The mom finally got out and took some juice for her kids and one or two items of food. She chose one pair of gloves. We couldn’t get her to take any blankets or other items.”
The volunteers walked around inviting anyone they met to breakfast. In another parking lot, they found a couple folding up blankets outside their car, in which they had just slept. The volunteers asked them if they’d had breakfast and they said no. When they were told about the breakfast, both looked very pleased and said they’d head right over. It turned out they’d been homeless for 9 months. They would have a place available to move into in a week’s time. The woman had lined up two part-time jobs, one of which she was scheduled to start this week as a bell ringer for the Salvation Army.
She took a wool poncho and a big heavy jacket that fit her perfectly. Everyone was telling her how good it looked, and her expression turned to one beaming with joy.
This is also the face of the homeless in Gilroy.
The Thanksgiving breakfast volunteers came from no particular affiliation and didn’t necessarily know each other beforehand. They were just a few folks who agreed to take time out from their own holiday celebrations to show others that they cared. The group included college students Antonio Silva and Jackie Arribere; 76-year-old Alice Bechard; Miki Kinkel, who was without her family this holiday; and Carmen Silva, the co-owner of Accent Tile, and her sister, who serves on a government advisory commission on Medicare.
When it turned out they had more food than anyone in the park could eat, they began driving around Gilroy seeking out the places where our invisible citizens take shelter: the old DMV building, the recycling center, parks, underpasses, laundromats, alleyways behind stores.
A mother came out of a laundromat with her two young children wanting breakfast. Creager and her daughter gave them juice and pastries but the mom would only accept one hard-boiled egg.
You begin to recognize how long people must have been poor when you see such a reaction.
There are so many people and stories on the street just waiting to be told and heard. Until we listen, we can’t truly solve the issues of homelessness or hunger.
In the past, Creager has taken her children to serve meals at the Lord’s Table and to do “drive-by” giving at Christmas but the Thanksgiving day volunteering was different.
“Once the homeless have faces, you begin to see them as people, as part of this community, and as humans that matter. I think this is the key to people caring,” she said.
Too often we try to keep them faceless, and that lets us remain apathetic.
“I don’t want to ever be that way,” Creager said. “As my mom always taught me, ‘There but for the Grace of God go I.'”
To donate coats or blankets to the homeless this winter, contact me at 846-4269.
