We’re “doing a thing”…

About a week ago my eldest daughter, Lainey, came to me with an idea. This is my daughter. She’s a sweetie pie. She’s often full of ideas and so I listened, waiting for the words “can I have”, or “will you buy me”, which are, in my defense, most of the ideas you normally hear from teenagers.

What I heard however, was something completely different. What I heard was “can you help me help someone else?”

She wanted to run another food drive like we did a few months ago at PCC in Edmonds, WA . This time, however, she wanted the food drive to help The Bread of Life Mission in Seattle, an organization that we volunteer at once a month. Of course, I was surprised, and then touched, and then energized to help my daughter do her “thing”.  Her sisters agreed this was a great idea, and they were quickly on board to dedicate a Saturday to helping the homeless.

When you least expect it your children can surprise you and make you realize that you have led them well by example. And then they make you wonder what it is that you do in your own life every day that makes a difference in our world. It’s not every day that your children lead you by THEIR example, and remind you that you have opportunities all around you to make a better community in a multitude of ways. I’m truly honored to have children as wonderful as mine.

Every Day One Thing, a startup in Seattle, will be sponsoring the drive, and The Bread of Life Mission is going to help us promote it. I hope all of you reading this will come out to PCC in Edmonds this Saturday, May 1st. We’ll be there from 9am to 2pm, taking donations of non-perishable foods. Every Day One Thing will be on hand to help you learn how to translate your donations into dots on their website, marking every time you do a “thing”. Read more about Edot, and their mission to make the world a better place or watch a quick video of what Edot is, by clicking here.

Superheroes don’t always wear tights

It’s true. Heroes don’t always wear tights. Or latex. Many don’t have superpowers. Most don’t even talk about how or why they are a hero. Many of the worlds heroes are quietly changing the world around them, one good deed at a time, and even their very best friend doesn’t even know it. Sort of like Ironman and his best pal, Rhodes.

Here in Seattle we have some very quiet heroes. And these heroes wear aprons. For most of them, you’d never know that once a month, they gather early on a Saturday afternoon to hit the streets to feed the homeless on their turf.

These apron wearing heroes are helping fight hunger on the streets of Seattle. Once a month, these random heroes gather at the Bread of Life Mission in downtown Seattle to prepare for that day’s Drive By Fooding. Packing hundreds of potatoes, gallons of steaming hot chili, bags of chili toppings, utensils, water and more into the Bread of Life Mission’s vans, they set out to find where the homeless are gathering on that particular day.

When those apron clad warriors climb out of those van’s they are a fast moving team, almost military in style with the speed and precision with which they move- quickly setting up tables and preparing for the lines of hungry homeless men and women that will form within minutes. For one to two hours they pile protein packed chili atop stick-to-your-ribs potatoes, slathering on cheese, and handing these nutritious meals to those that haven’t had one in days.

However, equally as important, these heroes are beacons of hope to the homeless men and woman who have become used to society seeing right through them. These heroes let the homeless know that someone does care.

The heroes are there to let them know that the Mission can help them change their lives. So far, the Mission has had several folks join their recovery program just because of the Drive By Fooding efforts. If helping a homeless person transition from street to recovery isn’t the act of a hero, I don’t know what is.

Want to be an apron wearing hero? The only qualification is that you care. Sign up to be a Drive By Fooding volunteer at the Bread Of Life Mission’s website.