Day 2 Family Promise Banaszak

Today we  finished sorting and organizing the donation room at Family Promise. Before, you could barely walk through it because people give so much during the Christmas season, but now you can walk through and it's easy to find everything! That took probably about two and a half hours (with a couple games of tag in there :) ).Then we unpacked some bags of clothes and put them on a table for the families to look through. Once that was done, I went and sorted through all the shoes and lined them up so families could pick them out easier. After that, we did a little more sorting of the clothes, and then played with the two cutest little boys ever. They were brothers, probably two and four years old. Once I was done sorting the shoes, the older boy came over to me and gave me a huge hug! So then we played with them for awhile, had to chase them out of the donation room, and they both gave lots of hugs. That was definitely the highlight of my day.

Before today I thought I understood homeless people. I thought they were just average, everyday people. But once I met those two little boys and said hi to their mom, I realized that, at least some, homeless people are more grateful than "average everyday people". The little boys were so full of joy, more than any kid I've ever babysat. Every little thing that most people would take for granted is a treasure to them, and it's great! Another thing I've learned so far this week is that there are so many more causes for homelessness than just drugs and alcohol. There's unemployment, illness, abuse, divorce, and just plain bad luck. And even though I kind of knew that before, it's actually become real to me this week.