Giving 2.0
Hello, my name is Stuart Liroff. I had an epiphany this morning while I was doing my daily yoga and meditation. I violated all my rituals because when I do my yoga and meditation, I’m supposed to be emptying my mind of everything, but my mind was flooded with the idea of “giving back”. We are all fortunate, those of us who have jobs in the Silicon Valley or S.F. (well, most of us); we don’t really live, eat, shop, or even walk in or near areas where there is true homelessness.
So, my idea was to have Giving 2.0 instead of Lunch 2.0 this Thanksgiving Season.
What I mean by this is that we find a venue, get the money, and serve hot Thanksgiving Dinner to the homeless of a local area. Obviously, since none of us works in areas where the homeless are, we’d most likely have to affiliate with a religious organization (simply for use of their facilities) or some community center (which most likely will already have cooking facilities), or one of our Lunch 2.0 participants volunteers their site; and we organize, help serve, and “give” a Thanks Giving 2.0.
Any thoughts?
In brainstormiing mode: we’d have to find “the right venue”; obviously, most of us work in areas where there aren’t any homeless. We’d either have to find a venue in the middle of an area of homelessness, or we’d have to bus them in. I’d be way in favor of the former. We’d need to convince a few CFOs that their contribution is worthy and probably tax deductible (:-). In other words, if we did this, we would need volunteers. Lots of volunteers. By my calculations, Monday and Tuesday November 20th and 21st are only 11 days away. I usually plan onf 14 for such events, so that means we’d automatically start off -3 days. I’d need volunteers to find money, find venues, find caterers, find servers, cleaner uppers etc. etc.
Please respond with a “yes” or “no”. If “yes,” please put down what you would volunteer for. If “no”, no problem.
If it’s “yes” I’ll put out 2nd announcemt, sort of suggesting a plan.
Stuart Liroff
http://stuart.plaxoed.com
November 9th, 2006 at 7:16 pm
You said 3 times that none of us live where there are homeless people. I beg to differ! I work in downtown San Jose and there are plenty of poor/homeless people there. Not to mention San Francisco, which due to overly-liberal policies and mild weather has tons of homeless people. Get out of the Valley office parks and go into the real cities here and you’ll find hordes of homeless people to feed.
November 9th, 2006 at 7:46 pm
SlashChick; thanks for your comments. I’m trying to find a venue where we can rent and setup and is in a place where homeless people will be able to walk to in order to get fed. Did you have any suggestions?
November 9th, 2006 at 10:35 pm
Stuart,
Nice thought, but…this is the type of thinking that goes through many people’s heads during the holidays. Volunteers are really not needed during Thanksgiving or Xmas, as many many people take time to volunteer then. The best time to volunteer is when no one else is: the other 50 weeks of the year that don’t contain Thanksgiving or Xmas.
Again, nice thought, but your time is much more needed at different times of the year.
November 10th, 2006 at 7:40 am
I have to echo Nice Thought But.
Having lived in a soup kitchen for 2 years I consider myself somewhat of an expert in the field.
Homeless people are very well fed and taken care of from November to December, again near Easter. Soup kitchens are bursting at the seams with donations at this time of year.
The “lean times” for homeless people are during non-holiday months when, for some reason, society forgets that homeless people still need to eat. It’s during these times that soup kitches will run out of food and have to turn away half of the hundreds of people lined up at the door. During the holidays we just zip them through like an assembly line.
Hold that thought until February!
– Sunshine Girl
November 10th, 2006 at 8:15 am
Thanks for the “nice thought”, on this forum and in the e-mails of support I received.
But time is running really really short. If we were to do this on Monday the 21st, we’d only now have 11 days to pull it off and I’m not detecting enough “gravity” on this thread to make that happen. So, unless your lurking out there, just waiting to jump in, now is the time to do so, or else I’ll most likely have to withdraw the idea for now.
In order to make this happen, I’d need
1) Some person who volunteeers to find someone able and willing to write a check and I don’t even know for how much yet,
2) someone to volunteer to find a venue
3) someone to volunteer to find a caterer.
4) someone to volunteer to do PR.
5) and probably at least 20-30 more volunteers.
Namaste,
Stuart
November 10th, 2006 at 8:24 am
My wife just recommended moving this thought to the Winter Holidays…any thoughts? Any volunteers? What I’d need is a small group of volunteers who say “yeah, I’m in” and I’ll put a small planning meeting together.
Stuart
November 10th, 2006 at 2:43 pm
Ok, I’m going to retract the idea.
I got a lot of good messages (in this thread) via phone and via e-mail, all very much support of the idea.
But, it seems that the foodbanks are overloaded with offers from volunteers and as has been said more eloquently than I, let’s do this when the homeless need it the most, during the none holiday season.
Thanks for all your feedback and comments.
Stuart
November 17th, 2006 at 7:44 am
For those that do want to get a taste of volunteering, and do it through an organization that has won many kudos throughout the years, check out OneBrick - http://www.onebrick.org. They have many events that you can sign up for. Basic process…sign up for an event, show up and do it (~2 hours) and then go out for dinner with the gang. The Food Bank is one of most popular. Help out…year round! Here - http://www.onebrick.org/calendar.asp
November 17th, 2006 at 11:18 pm
I’ll surmmarize the comments + e-mails I received. Most were “good idea” but… Most of the comments were that many local food kitchens could use volunteer help, and don’t need us to add to their confusion. So, if you choose, go to your favorite charity and give this holiday season. There were several comments and volunteers to work during a none holiday season when the truly homeless really do need help. Also, many comments were that the subject didn’t have to be homelessness at all; there are quite a few other issues having to do with “giving back” to our community. I’ll call for a small meeting of interested people after the 1st of the year.
Stuart Liroff