On a Saturday afternoon, a group of Live 3rd volunteers piled in to two vans and headed to downtown Detroit to pass out sleeping bags to the homeless living on the streets. Along with the sleeping bags we also handout out kits containing hates, gloves, socks, food, personal hygiene items and a Bible.
Thank you to those who donated items for the kits, to those who donated money to cover the cost of a sleeping bag, and to those who went out and delivered the sleeping bags. Thanks to your generous donations were able to increase the number of bags we gave out this year.
Geoff Caddell:
As one of the leaders of Live3rd and one of the guys that went out on this Sleeping bag mission, I can tell you this is an awesome event. The first year we did this project we were able to find a group of homeless persons in the underground section at Hart Plaza in downtown Detroit.
This year we made the mistake of going out while the Auto Show was in progress, but we were still able to find those in need with a little more determination. Thanks to all the people who donated monies and items that went along with the bags. We were forced to split the cargo into 2 minivans having too many sleeping bags than could fit in one van was an awesome problem to have. While one team of guys scoured the streets of Detroit the other team went by the nearby bridge underpasses were they found over 10 people in need of bags.
The van that I was in had a little bit harder time finding people on the streets but we were able to find some. One man unparticular, Sheldon, was standing in an intersection with a “will work for food sign” we spotted him as we drove by the intersection, Steve James the driver of our van quickly pulled to the side as Ben Carpenter and I jumped out and ran to street corner and yelled to the man if he wanted a sleeping bag, Sheldon ran over to us almost getting hit by a car in the process. He was so excited to have a bag and the package of items that we gave him along with it. Ben and I talked to him for a couple minutes while he told us that there were more people that use the bags we had at a local warming center. After talking to Sheldon and telling him to keep warm and safe he shook our hands and we were off to find the warming center that he had talked about. We were able to meet up with the other van and together both vans dropped of the remaining bags to the warming center.
To put the night in perspective even though we had a little bit rougher time finding people that could use the bags finding that one person, Sheldon and taking a few minutes to talk to him, while almost standing in the middle of the street at a busy intersection, even just for a couple minutes was well worth it.
