Free Lunch

Pruned

2007-12-02T22:09:00.000-06:00

Well, it has been a while since my last entry. Free lunch has still been going on, but it has been business as usual, and not much has been different. Sometimes I don't know that I really have a lot to write about.

When I first started out, I had a grand vision of a local or regional charity growing out of free lunch, and when I picked my blog address, freelunch.blogspot.com was already taken, so I had to settle for freelunchproject.blogspot.com. I was a little disappointed with the "project" part of the address because in my mind at the time, it was not a project. A project has a beginning and an end from the outset, and my vision at the time was an organization that had no end.

As I am now learning, the title was a little more appropriate than I thought because free lunch is going on a leave of absence for a little while. And I don't know how long! Healthy things grow, and I can certainly see how this has grown over the past year. I have given 945 lunches to hungry folks since the 16th of September 2006. A little over $2,000.00 has been donated (unsolicited) with a total lunch cost of about $3,150.00. Over 50 people have volunteered, and there was starting to be a good number of very regular volunteers. All of this is very encouraging.

When a gardener plants a garden (I don't know very much about gardining, so I am talking about my limited experience), every winter, the plants are pruned back so that new life can grow in a new season. Over the last few months, I have seen this coming, and I knew I was going to have to make a decision. I could try to keep a plant alive through a cold winter (which wouldn't work), and then try to make it grow in the next spring (which also wouldn't work). I am sad to see things go, and also looking forward to a little break. Through no planning of my own, the timing is pretty good. Around the holidays, a lot of charities ramp up and a lot more people volunteer, so I can trust that the people I have been serving will still be served.

Even as I type this, and as I have started telling people, I can feel the resources of the existing growth being pulled back in to the roots, awaiting something new. It may come back and look exactly the same, and it may appear different in the next season, but I know that this root will not die. It is permanent. And if it does die, it will leave a hole.

When I started free lunch, my life was messy. It still is. I had $1,000.00 in the bank, and I decided if I was going to go broke, I was going to do it my way. There were a couple of times that I was spending close to my last dollars on lunch thinking I was crazy. Other parts of my life were messy too. Relationships in ruins, a poor attitude, making bad choices for myself, all these things were going on, and one truth I could hold on to was serving poor people matters. It really matters. And it doesn't matter what is going on in my life when someone else hasn't had a healthy meal for a few days. My struggles are easier than a person completely addicted to a drug that is ruining their life. Or a person who can't hold a steady job for a whole host of reasons. Or a guy who thinks he has to pull a gun on a white boy from the suburbs to protect his way of life, I am not under the pressure or the threats that guy is under. Or the guy who's wife is dying of breast cancer and he is sending the money he earns here back to whatever part of the world she lives in so she has a chance to live.

I don't assume to know anything about that kind of life, because I have heat and a bed and clean clothes. But I do know something about eating lunch. And it is good to eat lunch. And I love it when my friends come and eat lunch with me. In the midst of whatever is going on in anyones life, lunch with a friend is pure gold. And even if it is for a few minutes, I can enjoy some time with a new friend.

Thank you to everyone that has helped out over the past year. I could not have done this on my own. I appreciate everyone who gave money, and everyone who volunteered. We will see what happens in the new season.

Free Lunch is 1 year old

2007-09-25T20:38:00.000-05:00

1 year ago this past weekend was the first free lunch. 805 lunches later, i feel like my blog posts have just become boring! It kind of troubled me at first, but after some reflection, I came to realize that free lunch is predictable. And for me, predictable is good. The people I see are familiar. The newness of experiencing a different culture and different kinds of people with different values has worn off. The are no longer objects that fulfill my desire of being charitable, they are people I see and even know a little bit. I see Lorenzo at the community center almost every time. Lorenzo knows me and I know him. He sees my car and he stands up and puts his arms out with a smile, and we walk to eachother and shake hands, and it is good to see him. I look forward to seeing Lorenzo, and I hope he looks forward to seeing me. After we exchange our greeting, he grabs a lunch and we hang out for a little bit.

When I think about it, it takes a measure of trust to take a lunch from a stranger. I would be a little skeptical if someone just gave me a lunch...what if they put ex-lax in the chocolate chip cookies? Luckily, I don't serve chocolate chip cookies, so I don't ever get the question.

The familiarity is a good thing. A very smart dude sends out an email every so often, and the last email was pretty insightful and encouraging to my latest experience, Floyd McClung writes:

Put down and cultivate roots. There is no fruit without roots. Roots give us strength. They bring stability when the wind blows. Roots mean we belong. A rootless person is a person who floats through life, never having stayed long enough or committed deep enough to really give himself or herself to a place or a people. Roots give us depth. In times of drought people with roots will survive, even thrive, while others dry up. There are seasons in everyone’s life of dryness. But a person with deep roots draws from the water that flows far beneath the surface. There are different kinds of roots: emotional roots, relational roots, cultural roots, and spiritual roots. Love the place God puts you. Love the people God joins you with. Invest your life in a small community of people where you are known, held accountable, and are loved.

If I were to stop doing free lunch, I would feel a little uprooted. That's a good thing, and a new thing, something I can smile about.

Last Saturday

2007-08-27T09:43:00.000-05:00

It has been a month since the last free lunch. My neighbors volunteered with me this week, and that was pretty cool, and a couple of other really cool things happened.

I have been going down to the hispanic community center for a while now, and I sort of know a few of the regulars that are hanging out there. When I got down there, everyone was happy as they normally are, and the coolest thing happened, a few of the guys came out to meet me, and I think we could have hugged. I was taken back by it at first, so it didn't happen, but dang, we are familiar enough with eachother that we could really greet eachother with a hug. It still makes me smile when I think about it. Almost a year ago, I walked in there with lunches, and they all looked at me like some sort of weird stranger, and now, we almost hugged.

Sometimes when we are driving around in the hood, we offer a lunch to someone who isn't homeless, and they have responded in a lot of different ways, some just laugh, others get really mad. One guy this last Saturday was just really happy to get a lunch, and I was happy to give it to him. It was really great. No qualifications necessary. Just lunch.

Artwork!

2007-07-18T18:38:00.002-05:00

Image is copyrighted by Jason Carrigan 2011

Over the last few months, I have been trying to come up with designs for a logo and a t-shirt design for free lunch, and it has been slow going. Today, I would like to announce the new logo, designed by Amber (thanks Amber!!).

Does that rock or what?

There has also been quite a bit of development on the business side of things. The form for registering free lunch as an official non-profit organization is almost complete, and I would like to get that done before the end of the year.

Last weekend was pretty cool because we had a lot of volunteers, half new half had volunteered before. I had a meeting in the morning and I didn't get back to the house until 11:30. According to the schedule, we should be finished packing lunches by 11:30, and guess what, when I got back to the house, they were exactly on schedule. Without me being there. Awesome. I have the best volunteers.

What do you think of the new logo?

Raving Fans

2007-07-01T14:37:00.000-05:00

Ever since my encounter with a drug dealer a few months ago, I have mostly been turned off to them, and quite honestly a little scared of going back there. I have served lunches in the outskirts of the park where the drug dealers hang out, and I have really wanted to go back there, but I was not wanting to have an encounter with them like I have in the past.

Yesterday it was raining, which means most people are inside and there aren't that many people walking around. We had to work a little harder to find people, which always reminds me of how isolated anyone can become. When rain hits, we head for shelter. Out of the open and in to the places where the rain can't touch us. Sometimes those places can be filled with friends and families, and other times those can be places of isolation. I know what the outside of the buildings look like in the hood, I can't imagine what the insides of those places look like.

I drove around the block where the drug dealers hang out, and saw a drug deal going down, my enthusiastic friend, never having witnessed a drug deal going down, was so excited that she was able to experience that for the first time. So we went around the block thinking that when we circled back, they would be finished with their transaction, and it would be safer to give them a lunch. They were done, and we gave both of them a lunch. It is easy to figure out who the drug dealers are, because they are dressed much nicer than anyone else around there. This drug dealer looked pretty mean, but he was a nice enough guy, and we gave him a lunch and he thanked us.

We had to drive around quite a bit to find people, and when a car is driving around in circles in that area, it most often means that someone is looking for drugs. A guy waved us down, and I knew why he was waving at us (to offer us drugs), and so we drove over to where he was at. I rolled down the passenger window, he leaned his head down, and with a big smile, he said, "whats up?". This translates to: what kind of drugs would you like today? I smiled back and told him we have some lunches and asked him if he was hungry. He paused for just a second, and he figured out who we were, and he laughed and asked us what was in the lunch. He didn't care for ham sandwiches, but he asked for a water, and we gladly gave it to him.

He was the nicest drug dealer I have ever met. If I bought drugs, I would go to that guy every day. There was something about him that was just pleasant to be around. He was encouraging, he had a nice smile, and he was happy to serve me.

It was refreshing to have a pleasant interaction with people in that area. It is so hard to know what to expect going there because when people are on drugs, they are unpredictable. The Hispanic community center is very predictable. Smiles, everyone is glad we are there, the language barrier always makes communication a little difficult, but it is really fun. Drugs are just bad news. The addiction binds people up so that it makes them very difficult to be around. It isolates people to a certain way of life that isn't good for them and not good for the people around them.

When I meet a guy like that, it renews my hope and my purpose for going down to that part of town. I give them what I can, and be there in the ways that I am able to. I can only hope that they receive even a fraction of the joy I experience.

i'm lovin' it.

2007-06-06T23:32:00.000-05:00

That is the current slogan for McDonalds. I remembered when McDonalds had a sign that used to read 50 million served, and then it kept going up and up. I think now they just say billions and billions served. So tonight I decided to add up how many lunches that have been served through free lunch, not quite in the same league as McDonalds, but 560 is not too shabby in my opinion.

In case you didn't know, I was McDonalds Employee of the month in September of 1993 at store #6003, located in Apple Valley, MN, one of the busiest locations in the Minneapolis area. That's not too shabby either. The store is located on the main road that goes through all the southern suburbs. When I got bored, I would sneak down to the utility room, open up the breaker panel, and turn the breaker for the big sign out front on and off for about a minute. People freaked out and didn't know what was going on, not even the managers. I just smiled and kept working hard....and no one ever knew....until now.

Values

2007-06-04T09:15:00.000-05:00

This week my mom is in town, so I thought it would be a good time to talk about the values of free lunch. She went with us downtown to serve lunches on Saturday, and it was fun to have her along because she lives in Los Angeles, and we don't get a lot of time to hang out.

I always find it interesting that more girls volunteer than guys. In my observation, girls are so much better at getting involved and helping out. I don't understand why more guys don't join in, because the girls are cute, and a lot of my guy friends don't have girlfriends. It is a mystery to me...what better way to get to know a girl than to spend a few hours together on Saturday serving lunches??

I have been asked several times in the last few weeks if I would be interested in receiving food donations that aren't the standard free lunch menu items. Good food too...a friend of mine is a caterer, and she fixes food every weekend, always has leftovers, and she doesn't have a good place to take them. Another friend offered to take a grill downtown and put on a big bbq for people. These are good offers, and I have been a little conflicted about accepting them.

The vision of free lunch has evolved, or formed in to something that would resemble a city wide, or even regional charity organization that reaches invisible communities in the vicinity of a person that wishes to become involved. In order to accomplish that, I would like to develop a model that is so simple, that anyone can repeat it. The formula is simple, make a lunch menu, go to the store and buy it, go to wherever the people are at, and hang out.

Finding an invisible group of people is hard enough (because they are invisible), and each lunch has its own set of unpredictable events, so I think it is important to make as many parts of the process as planned and predictable (and efficient) as possible. I go to the grocery store at the same time, I even pack the cart the same way, we pack the lunches the same way, go to the same places at the same time in the same car. If someone wants to help out, and it doesn't fit in to the set of expectations that I operate under, I typically turn down the help. I feel bad, but as this little experiment is being built, it is important to stick to the values that hold it together. So here is what I see as the valuable parts of free lunch:

Set very clear, and very low expectations of what I am willing to offer. Lunch and hanging out are two things that I know I can deliver on a consistent basis.
Seeking out and connecting with invisible people is the fundamental purpose, and value.
Sticking to a plan and model that can be duplicated is a value that will serve as the fundamental growth strategy.

That's about it. I try to keep it simple.

As I pulled up to the community center on the west side, one of the guys remembered my name, and that feels good. There were a bunch of people there, and I didn't see Alejandro. I will try to give an update if I hear from him again.

Livin the dream

2007-05-07T22:37:00.000-05:00

Sometimes I go to the grocery store by myself and meet the volunteers back at the house and we pack lunches and go downtown. I have a plan when I go to the grocery store. I have a planned path that I follow every time I am in the grocery store, and the groceries go in the cart the same way. The lunches are packed the same way and handed out in the same way every week. Some people think I am a little...ahem...compulsive? For me it is all about efficiency. If I follow the same path in the grocery store, the groceries go in the cart and come off the cart so the person packing the groceries can pack them in such a way that they are easy to unpack at the house and easy to pack back in to lunches. I hold these plans loosely, and if I have people with me at the grocery store, I don't mind if the capri suns are stacked neatly in the front of the cart, and I don't mind if the snack packs aren't stacked neatly next to the capri suns, and I don't mind if the bread isn't stacked on the capri suns, or if the sliced meat is in the child seat, I do mind, however, if my volunteers purse is in the child seat, because come on, that just looks weird.

I make plans and hope that everything goes to plan. I also have hopes and dreams for free lunch. The purpose of free lunch is to meet the physical needs of people, and try to get to know them and be in community with them. I don't know anything about being homeless or being poor, so I don't assume that I know the life of a homeless person. I also don't assume that I know how to serve them. My dream is that someone would ask me to help them, that I would be invited in to their life, and I would have the opportunity to respond with whatever resources I am able to offer.

I have this notion that no one really wants to know the problems and junk of my life, so I often don't invite people in to the messy places in my life. Its easy to show someone the places in my life that are in order and comfortable to share, but it is a struggle, even with my good friends, to invite them in to the messes.

Alejandro is from Guatemala, his wife has breast cancer. We were serving lunch at the community center when Alejandro approached me telling his story in Spanish. I did my best to try to understand him, but I couldn't fully understand him. I asked Santos to help translate for me. Santos speaks English and Spanish, and he was happy to help me. How about that, now I am the one with needs, and the tables are turned. Freaking awesome. Santos translated for Alejandro, and Alejandro began to invite me in to a place in his life where he doesn't have it all together, and its a mess. I felt so privileged to hang out with him in his messy place.

I learned the lesson that we all have a deep need to share our whole lives with eachother. To know that we are not alone in our struggles and troubles is one of the most fulfilling feelings in the world. In my experience, most of us are walking around pretending that we have it all together, but the truth is that we are all fragile, and we don't know how to hold it all together. It is so much easier to make the best of things when we are known, and when others know what is going on. It doesn't matter if they can fix it, or have resources to provide help, but for some reason being known helps to hold it together. My belief is that when our burdens are known, they are a lighter load to carry.

So my hope is for more open doors, not only with the people I serve, but in my own life. I think we all have the ability to put on a facade of perfection, but we aren't perfect. It seems like a simple enough lesson, but it is hard to put in to practice. Baby steps. It doesn't matter if the groceries in the cart are perfectly situated, the same every time. That's not life. Life sometimes means the groceries can just be thrown in the cart in no particular order. Maybe even taking a different path through the grocery store, everyone needs a little adventure. One step at a time though...it gets easier with time.

If you have the chance to have Alejandro in your thoughts, I am sure he would appreciate it. I didn't get too many details, but he doesn't see his wife very often, and I am sure it is a stress on the whole family. He would appreciate you keeping him in mind.

I Heart Google

2007-05-01T22:59:00.000-05:00

And Google hearts me, #1 baby

However, I didn't give an update from the last free lunch, and the next one is right around the corner. On Cinco de Mayo. Maybe some sombreros are in order.

More soon.

Normal

2007-04-13T14:48:00.000-05:00

After each Saturday I serve, I try to think about what was different, or what I learned, or who I met, and how it changed me. This last Saturday was just a normal non-eventful Saturday. I am thankful for non-eventful. It's good when it is just pleasant. When I know what to expect and when it goes the way I planned it, that's good.

We did run in to one peculiar fellow down in the hood. There is this small apartment building that looks like a crack house. There are usually about 6 or 7 guys who hang out in front of it and for some reason I am drawn to that place. It is around the corner from the drug dealers, but it is clearly a place where squatters squat.

There were a few guys hanging out in front of the place when I pulled up, one of them looked a little lost, and I don't think he spoke english. We asked him if we wanted a lunch, and he looked around for a while, and then he just started running.

I wonder what the story is behind all of those people. How did they get where they are? How do I find out? There are so many people I serve that rarely recognize people. A few people know me because included in every lunch is a Capri Sun. People love the Capri Suns. People ask for them specifically.

It's good that people are getting to know me. Especially the drug dealers. They know my car now. They know about the Capri Sun's too.

I am sure there will be challenges ahead, but it is restful to just keep the normal procedure running. The danger is still there and the ride is still exciting, but it is a familiar road.

Sweet ride

2007-03-28T14:10:00.000-05:00

After last week's brush with death, I was encouraged by the past few weeks. Here's the scoop:

There has been a significant increase in interest from volunteers
Web traffic has increased
Last weekend two brand new volunteers joined me
There has been an increase in donations
A friend of mine took his family and handed out lunches downtown

It is nice to have a positive wave of stuff happening. Starting Free Lunch has had its ups and downs, but one thing is for sure, it has always been a sweet ride. Its kind of like driving too fast through the mountains. The danger is real, the likely consequences of skidding off the mountain is death, going around a corner too fast and starting to feel the tires slip is exhilerating, eyes glued to the road, calculating every turn, planning each pass, then hitting the straightaway and just flying.

I love this life.

Stayin Alive

2007-03-10T13:55:00.000-06:00

The weather is getting nicer, which meant that there were a lot of people working and the hispanic community center was nearly empty! I love going there. The people are nice and thankful, they always smile, and the awkwardness created by our inability to communicate is fun. It's empty because a lot of people were working, which I am happy about, but I missed seeing my friends.

Also, when the weather is nice, there are a bunch of people at the park on the east side. Lots of parents with their kids playing. There are a lot of people in need there, so the lunches go quickly. With the nice weather, I expected a large crowd. So when we started up Harrison Street, and I saw a lot of people, I told the two girls with me to roll up the windows because we always serve lunch there outside with the car doors locked so people won't be able to get in the car.

There are a few people who know me, and know what I am about, so I am never surprised when people approach the car as I am pulling up. I usually smile at them and get out of my car to serve them lunch. As we were driving to where we get out of the car, a guy was walking quickly toward the car, and I was glad that a regular recognized me. When he got in the street, I could tell he didn't know me and he assumed I was there threatening his turf. The park is prime real estate for drug traffic, and this guy was the neighborhood watch dog, a mean one too. I rolled down my window as he approached the car and he yelled at me in a way that made me more scared than I have ever been while I have been doing free lunch. I have been approached before, and scared before, but this guy shook me. I told him I was here to hand out lunches to whoever wanted one, and asked him if he was ok with it. He let me know he was cool with it, and walked away. When I got out of the car and started getting lunches out, it was immediately obvious who the drug dealers were and who wanted food. The drug dealers scattered, and the hungry people came and got lunch. Eventually the watchdog came and I gave him a lunch too.

There is good and evil that exist in this world. We will probably never all agree about who or what is good, but it is easy to agree on what evil is, and most of us know what it feels like.

I couldn't shake off my feelings about what happened, so I called a friend who could articulate the realisty of what happened when I told him the story. Encountering evil with kindness is dangerous work. Evil is real, and if you choose to go in to evil territory, you will probably be threatened. And it's not just your comfort that is at risk, evil uses guns and bullets to stake its claim. Death is a real possibility.

So it is important to be aware of the choices I am making, and to communicate the reality of the places we go to serve lunch. It is also important to choose what battles to fight. Is it worth the risk of death to bring someone a lunch? Why? I don't pretend to have an easy answer to that question, because I don't think an easy answer exists. For me, it is about a belief in something that is sometimes hard to believe. I'm really forced to choose when I am confronted with the possibility that my life my be threatened. Because if I don't really believe it, I am better off to stay home. I believe kindness can change another person, or several people. I believe that kindness is the best tool to infiltrate evil territory. Opposing force can wipe it out or destroy it, but I believe that kindness can change it. When it comes down to it, it's good vs. evil, and I'm in the fight.

T-shirt design contest update

2007-03-05T17:50:00.000-06:00

Entries continue to come in for the t-shirt design contest, but there is no clear winner. My friends Becca and Patti put their heads together to come up with this design:

If you think you can design a better t-shirt than this, the design deadline is April 15th. Good Luck!

New questions

2007-02-28T09:43:00.000-06:00

The last few weeks, Free Lunch has operated like a machine. Volunteers show up, lunches are made, handed out, and we come home. We know where we are going, and we know what we are doing.

When I first started Free Lunch, I drove around downtown for a few months just trying to find the right place to go. During that time, I was thinking through all of the logistical problems I would have to solve like: How am I going to tell people about it? What kind of lunch am I going to make? How much should I budget? How will volunteers find out about it and sign up? Where will I hand out lunches? How will I hand out lunches? Who will I serve? Who else should I think about serving? Questions like that.

Recently a new question has surfaced, How effective are the methods used in accomplishing the purpose? If the purpose of Free Lunch is to form communities with invisible people, and inform people that pathways to these invisible people exist, then how do I measure success?

Jim Collins is the man. He wrote a book called Good to Great, a book that profiles businesses that went from good businesses to great businesses. He first defined good and great businesses, and made a few observations about why some companies make the leap. He also wrote a additional chapter, released in the form of a monograph, about how to apply the great company principles to the social sector. One of the challenging questions that came from that book was, How do you measure output from a social cause? Can I measure community? Can I measure the effectiveness of my efforts? What is the effect? Is the effect in line with my purpose? These questions are more difficult to answer.

Floyd McClung is also the man. I had a chance to hear Floyd speak last night and he shed some light on answering these new questions. He made the point that a person's core values will determine how they interpret input and ultimately dictate how they choose to act. Floyd McClung has done some incredible work in his lifetime. He is unprecedented...sort of. He doesn't have a lot of precedence. Most of us live life similar to how the people around us live life. That isn't a bad thing, we are very lucky to have well developed methods for getting an education, getting a job, living accommodations are plentiful and comfortable. This is one reason why America rocks, we have a great country with lots of good role models that have preceded us, showed us what they did right, and what we can do better.

I don't know Floyd very well, but it seems to me that he had the energy and ideas to carve his own path. AND he has been effective in what he is doing. So when he says that a persons core values influence what they choose to do, I am going to start asking that question. What does Free Lunch value? What do I value? I don't answer that question by what I am saying, but by my track record.

I am going to be honest and tell you that I value having fun, and running a machine. I like how smoothly Free Lunch runs every time. I like the system. I like how everything is timed and it happens on time or just a little bit ahead of schedule. I don't think those are bad things to value and enjoy, but they are secondary.

So I will continue to ask more questions and get better at doing what Free Lunch is all about.

Now, since I do enjoy the systems part of it, I will share with you a few statistics:

First Free Lunch: 16 September, 2006
Number of lunches served to date: 350
Average Cost of Lunch: $3.16
Number of volunteers who have contributed: 23
Approximate number of volunteer hours served: 190
Fastest grocery store run: 12 minutes
Percentage of lunches paid for by donors (unsolicited, they gave out of their own generosity!): 65%
A lunch includes:

1 ham or turkey sandwich in a sandwich bag ($1.17)
1 chocolate pudding snack pack ($0.27)
1 apple ($0.45)
1 banana ($0.20)
2 granola bars ($0.50)
1 spoon ($0.03)
1 napkin ($0.01)
1 bottle of water ($0.16)
1 capri sun (woo! juicy!) ($0.23)
1 brown bag ($0.02)
the man ($0.23)
1 smile (priceless)

Isn't it fun to keep track of all the stats? I love that part.

Warmer Weather

2007-02-12T10:38:00.000-06:00

The weather was a little bit warmer this weekend and more people were outside walking around. The last few weeks it has been pretty freaking cold outside. A taste of warmer weather and sunshine brought anticipation for springtime.

The last few weeks we have got our foot in the door at the hispanic community center on the west side. Typically when I pull up, people pour out the doors and flock to the car to pick up a lunch and go back inside to eat. This week I really wanted to bring the lunch all the way inside and hang out with them for a little while. When I pulled up, we all grabbed the food and started inside. It was all smiles as usual when we started handing out lunches. I felt comfortable and welcomed being inside, which was a relief because I was a little nervous about how it would be once I was on their turf. They seemed to be comfortable, we communicated as much as we could to eachother, and then we took off.

I feel like we made a big step this weekend. We are on the inside. It has been slow going building a relationship with anyone and it feels good to see something forming there.

There are always a lot of people walking around on the east side. As the weather gets warmer there are even more. I don't exactly know how I am going to form relationships with anyone up there, because I don't see the same people very often. I became curious about a small group of people standing outside what looked like a small abandoned building. They didn't appear to be the most welcoming people, but when I talked to them they were nice and appreciated the lunch. I am going to try and see what they are all about. I don't think I will make any efforts to go inside their building though...it looks like dangerous territory.

Woo! Juicy!

2007-01-27T15:09:00.000-06:00

We just finished handing out lunches a few hours ago, and I couldn't wait to write about it. The word that best describes my experience this Saturday is 'juicy'.

First, we stopped by the Latino community center, and everyone there was happy to see us again. We always get such a warm response when we go there. The people that hang out there are so happy when we pull up. I went inside for just a minute and made sure that everyone got some food, and I really felt welcomed when I stepped inside. I think that is really rare. A white boy stepping in to a different culture, and getting nothing but smiles and greetings. It just feels good to serve there. Most of the guys don't speak English, so communication is pretty limited, but dang, I really like that place.

We took two cars again because we had too many volunteers for one car, which I think is a great problem. I really like the people that were helping, so it is fun to serve with friends. I have been working pretty hard to tell people about Free Lunch, and to get everything set up, and I was surprised at how much joy is packed in all the work. We just laughed most of the time. We met funny people as we were heading over to the east side. There were a few creepy people too, but people were funny today.

I was driving down a road and saw a guy walking that looked like he could use a lunch, and we rolled down the window and handed him a lunch. We also give out a water and a capri sun with every lunch. People love the capri sun. It reminds me of elementary school cafeteria, and it usually makes people smile when I give them one, I think it is an unexpected surprise.
When I handed this guy his capri sun, he let out an emphatic, 'Woo! Juicy!' He laughed and we all laughed. And we continued to laugh about it the rest of the car ride. I would not have experienced that if I had been at home fixing lunch by myself, and I would like to think that he would not have been able to joke around with someone if I had not pulled up. Free Lunch changed my afternoon. I just really enjoyed it.

Free Lunch is also currently accepting designs for the first annual t-shirt design contest. Submissions are due by April 15th, and shirts will be available in the summer.

T-Shirt Design Contest

2007-01-27T14:41:00.000-06:00

Free Lunch is hosting its first annual t-shirt design contest. Submit your design by email in jpeg format by April 15th, 2007. T-shirts will be available to purchase this summer.

The winning design gets a free t-shirt and publicity on the site and some other prize that I haven't figured out yet.

If you have questions, my email address is jasoncarrigan@gmail.com

A design review board will pick the best design. All proceeds go towards free lunch.

No Hablo Espanol

2007-01-15T16:41:00.000-06:00

One of my regular stops is a latino community center on the southwest side of the city. It is one of those places where you can pick up a truckload of day laborers if you can pay in cash. When I serve lunch there, everyone is very appreciative, but I can't communicate with them because the ones I talked to didn't speak english, and yo no hablo espanol. I usually just smile.

This week I took some friends with me that know spanish, so when we pulled up, Kurt asked the dude out front if they wanted lunch and if there were more people inside that wanted lunch too. We ended up staying for about 30 minutes. Kurt and Emily went inside (they are both fluent) and met a bunch of the guys. I waited outside with Santos. Santos told me about his 8 boys and 1 daughter (and 2 wives). I hardly had to say a word, Santos had a lot to talk about.

I was curious to know the story on the community center. The area is heavily populated with latinos, and before the community center, they all hung out at a local liquor store. That started causing a lot of trouble for the community, so someone built the community center (I think there are some apartments above it), and people wait there to be picked up for day labor. Santos said that it helped to clean up the neighborhood.

I have worked with the latino community several times on different projects, and I always go away feeling thanked and appreciated. It is different from the feeling I get when I leave the east side location. Up there when I leave, I feel glad just to be alive. I don't know what the difference is, the circumstances are about the same, there is just so little hope on the east side. I think that is what keeps me going back. It doesn't matter how much money anyone has, if someone loses hope, they are in a bad spot. Nothing is good.

I want to be able to offer what little hope there is in knowing that there is a meal coming on Saturday. I don't know if that makes a big difference in someone's life, but from what I have observed so far, it makes some kind of difference in their day. And that is good enough for me.

On a side note, I handed out more lunches, and had more volunteers this week than I have ever had before. That was fun.

New Years Eve Eve

2007-01-03T15:56:00.000-06:00

I served lunch on the 30th. It was raining that day, and there were a lot of people walking around. Sometimes it is really hard to find people and sometimes it is really easy. I went to the east side and met some more scary drug dealers, but it was pretty uneventful. I went to the southwest side and met up with my Mexican friends. There is a pretty severe language barrier with those folks. I don't really know spanish, so I have to get out of the car and show them I have lunch for them. When the first one gets served, they all come running out of the building and I never have enough lunches. I would really like to get to know those folks. I don't know anything about why they congregate there.

The first guy I served that day was pretty funny. I was driving up towards the east side, and I saw a guy walking across a bridge. When I offered him lunch, he smiled and laughed and said, 'now I don't have to go to church!'

Most of you that read this blog know that I do go to church, so I was a little alarmed by his response. Did I just make a mistake? Did I take someone away from church? I came to the conclusion that I brought a little bit of church to him. serving lunch = church. It's really that simple.

I hope you all had a great holiday season. Have a great 2007!

Tis the Season

2006-12-19T17:35:00.000-06:00

The Winter Months

2006-12-17T17:28:00.000-06:00

It is a little unexpected that the winter months make it harder to find people to give out lunches. It makes sense though, when it is cold, people stay inside. This past Saturday was unusually warm outside, so there were lots of people out and about. The turf war was on again, although this time it was with the forces of good instead of the forces of drug dealers. There was another group serving lunch at my turf on the east side. They had a pretty sweet set up too. They brought tables and it looked like they had hot food to serve. Most of the folks that were walking around got their lunch from my competition.

There was an article in The Pitch, a weekly Kansas City publication, where they interviewed a few homeless folks around town. Most of the people had some wisdom to offer about what it takes to live on the street. One guy said it is a constant turf war. You have to claim your spot and daily let others know it is yours. You can't afford to let another person stake a claim on prime real estate because the take will be diluted. Most of the guys had well developed strategies for bringing in tax free money.

The interviewer didn't include anything in the article about why the people were homeless, and if it was a choice, or if they have just fallen on hard times. I wonder...

This Saturday I took two friends with me, Jessica and Julie. I was a little concerned taking two girls with me, in light of what happened last week. I think that we have the forces of good working for us though, so we were once again safe.

I saw something I have never seen before. We were driving around the east side of town, and I saw a rough looking dude walking behind a building. When I pulled up, he was searching through a dumpster apparently looking for food. I gave him a lunch and drove away and that image stuck with me.

I think I am a little naive when it comes to understanding the reality of life on the street. The article in the pitch highlighted people who seemed to be relatively healthy, and made a pretty good living for themselves. I think it was a rose colored view of the homeless community. This guy was looking through the trash for food. And that is his life. I don't know where he had come from, or where he was headed, but he was looking through the trash for food. I have never had to look through the trash for food. I have no idea what this guy has to do to survive on a daily basis. I complain when my roommate accidentally erases an episode of The Office from our TiVo before I get a chance to watch it. This guy does his grocery shopping at Deffenbaugh.

Being exposed to the reality of the life of a homeless person has created more compassion in me for people who don't have much. I have to admit that when I started this little adventure, I was more passionate about building a nonprofit organization, the business of charity. It is a pleasant surprise that this is changing me. Certainly not something I planned for.

Turf war

2006-12-02T15:06:00.000-06:00

It snowed here a few days ago and today it was still pretty cold. As I pulled up to the east side location, for the first time there was no one on the sidewalk. I ran in to one lady and she told me the people were all scattered because it was cold out and I would have to drive around to find people. I told her about what we were doing, and she told me she would help "drum up some business", so she just started yelling at a few guys who were walking a block away. One of them came over and I was talking to him for a few minutes. He was clearly troubled in some way, or on crack, and his conversation didn't make much sense. When he started getting upset, I told him to have a nice day then I turned around and got back to my car as he started yelling louder and louder. I have mentioned before that this is not really the safest part of town.

When I got back in my car, another car sped up from behind and pulled along side me. I rolled down my window but the guy and girl in the car just stared at me without rolling down their window. I asked them if they had lunch yet, and offered them both something to eat. I was a little scared because I knew I was on his turf, and I was also sure that he had more guns in the car than I did (I don't carry a gun). The tension broke, the girl laughed, the guy smiled, they rolled down their window, and told me they had already had lunch.

I have been scared before, and I was certainly scared then, but thinking back, it is freaking amazing that when I offered him a lunch, everything was cool. We were just two people. He was not a drug dealer protecting his turf, and I was not a scared white boy. We were equal for that akward moment when our lives intersected. I don't get it, food is magic peace potion. The tagline (the one in the banner at the top of the page) became true today.

In other news, I found a new community to get to know, and that is why I have started asking for help. I need more poeple who believe in this vision to step up and get started. SO, I have a favor to ask you...please tell others about the website. Put a link on your page. Tell your friends. Tell your family. Tell them I need help. Tell them they don't need to raise their own money. I just need their time. I will help them get started and get comfortable. Unfortunately, I can't issue guns to any volunteers, Free Lunch policy states that you must serve lunch at your own risk.

Help!

2006-12-02T14:54:00.000-06:00

Here's how:

I need help each week making and handing out lunches. The typical schedule goes something like this:

10:30-11:00 - go to the grocery store and buy food
11:00-11:45 - make lunches
11:45-12:00 - drive downtown
12:00-1:15 - deliver lunches and talk to people
1:15-1:30 - drive back to the house

If you are interested in helping, send an email to the following address:
freelunchvolunteers@gmail.com

Rest

2006-11-26T21:31:00.000-06:00

There are all kinds of personality test books that give language to describe the kind of people we are. Last spring a friend of mine forced (not an exaggeration) all of her friends to take a test so she would know the inner workings of all of us. She took the book everywhere, and if there was a person who had not taken the test, she stopped everything and forced (not an exaggeration) the person to answer all 70 questions and then do the analysis to find out what kind of person they were. I am an INFJ.

The most beneficial book I have ever read that describes personalities is called Now Discover Your Strengths. The author made the point that if a person focuses on their strengths, and lives out of them, that person will be a much more effective _______________ (fill in the blank).

One of my strengths is responsibility. As with any strength, it has good stuff and bad stuff. The good stuff is that I make sure things get done. The bad stuff is I take responsibility for things I have no business being responsible for, and sometimes so much responsibility (without cutting myself any slack) that I run myself ragged.

In order to keep my life straight, I have to write down a task list of all the things that keep my life moving in the direction I want it to. When I construct my list, I have 3 sections: past events, present events, and future events. Every time I look at my task list, I have to tell myself (and I always use the stereotypical psychologist tone) that I can't change the past and I can't control the future, so I am left to focus on my present tasks. When I don't get a task done at the scheduled time, I have learned that it is normal to feel some pressure, but it is no reason to have a nervous breakdown. I am practicing my breathing techniques right now.

I have been serving lunch every other Saturday for the past few weeks. This past Saturday, according to the schedule, was the next lunch. But I was sick. And tired. And I didn't sleep the night before. And I am sure I could come up with three hundred and twenty seven other excuses, but the truth of it all is that I just wanted to rest. So I did. And the world kept turning. The sky is still firmly in place.

A friend pursuing a similar goal with his work told me that his work is a product, or expression of who he is. When he delivers his product, it is a result of what is going on in his life. When life bears down on him, he has to outsource his manufacturing process. I am not being very clear here, but what it brought me to realize is that I can only do what I can do, and I asked myself if it was more beneficial to maintain a thing that in the end might wear me down to a ragged mess, or to maintain myself and take a breather when I am out of breath. I assume that the disclaimers about laziness, and self-serving are understood here.

A few months ago, I read the best book I have ever read on business and life. It is worth reading whatever your occupation, check it out here. The book kept hammering the idea that healthy people have a healthy influence on the people around them, and they benefit the people they care about, the more healthy they are.

So at the risk of going against my compulsion to run myself ragged in order to keep my "system" in place and causing a nervous breakdown, I gave myself the day off and I will be eating lunch with my friends again this Saturday.

Fifth lunch

2006-11-13T18:43:00.000-06:00

After a lunch, there are so many things to write about. I always get something from going through the process of feeding people. It has been a month since I have done Free Lunch (I was out of town during the last Free Lunch at Billy's wedding, Patrick filled in for me). This week I took Billy and Holly. Holly's brother does a similar project in San Diego. He is associated with a church and it sounds cool. Check it out here.

After making the lunches, we drove around the usual route and tried to find people under the bridge, but I didn't find anyone. We drove through downtown, and it was pretty quiet. For the first time ever, I had enough lunches to feed everyone on the east side. I learned that 3 people make the east side much more manageable. It felt good to have enough food. I also forgot my glasses, and me driving without glasses is not so good.

I don't know what it will take to break the ice with the people on the east side. For the most part, they still grab and go back to their spot on the curb. I haven't formed any real relationships with anyone yet, and I don't really expect to for a little while, but I am still holding out hope (and that is allowable under the protocol for building relationships as outlined in an earlier post).

Free Lunch puts my feet back on the ground and reminds me of what I can do. If you take a look at the 10 commandments from the Bible, the first 4 deal with a relationship with God, and the last 6 deal with relationships with others. Honor your parents, Don't murder, Don't commit adultery, Don't steal, Don't lie, Don't covet. That's a lot of don'ts for me. Some are easier to follow than others, but if I walk around keeping in mind all the things that I am supposed to don't, I am afraid that I won't do anything.

The new testament keeps it simple (and simple is good). Do love God. Do love your neighbor. I was talking with a friend this past weekend about the ability of humans to do any selfless act. Her thesis was that it is possible to accomplish a selfless act, even if that produces a good feeling for the giver. The good feeling is not the motive, because the act of giving may or may not produce a good feeling. Sometimes it does, and that is great, but I don't think it is possible to prove that a good feeling is always the product. I forgot to ask her how she completed her argument, because I was too selfish to ask her any more about it and I probably started talking about myself. This is probably tied to my need to have everything planned and under control. God forbid I learn anything new from another person. In my experience, my own selfishness has been the single biggest roadblock to getting to know others and being surprised by what the world has to offer. Don't listen was not one of the 10 commandments, neither was don't be teachable, don't wonder, don't explore, don't ask questions, don't be open to change, don't ever be wrong, don't learn, or don't speed while driving.

The transition from don't to do offers a lot of freedom for me. Of course there are still rules, but the produce is more important than the protocol.

Do you like how I slipped in the fact that the 10 commandments says nothing specifically about speeding in a car? I have 5 speeding tickets in the last year and I am trying to figure out some way to justify myself.

On vision

2006-11-04T16:18:00.000-06:00

There is this older guy that I know only by what is written* about him. He died a long time ago, but from what is written about him, he sounds like someone I would have liked to know. This is a speech he wrote down before he spoke it one Fourth of July toward the end of his life:

---------------------------------------------
Children-
When I was a young man the Lord came to me and put His hand just here on my right shoulder. I can feel it still. And He spoke to me, very clearly. The words went right though me. He said, Free the captive. Preach good news to the poor. Proclaim liberty throughout the land. That is all Scripture, of course, and the words were already very familiar to me at the time. But it is clear enough why He would feel they needed special emphasis. No one lives by them, unless the Lord takes him in hand. Certainly I did not, until the day He stood beside me and spoke those words to me.

I would call that experience a vision. We had visions in those days, a number of us did. Your young men will have visions and your old men will dream dreams. And now all those young men are old men, if they're alive at all, and their visions are no more than dreams, and the old days are forgotten long before we are.

The President, General Grant, once called Iowa the shining star of radicalism. But what is left here in Iowa? What is left here in Gilead? Dust. Dust and ashes. Scripture says the people perish, and they certainly do. It is remarkable. For all this His anger is not turned away, but His Hand is stretched out still.

The Lord Bless you and keep you, etc.
---------------------------------------------

I have written before about this project being a vision. if you have been reading this blog for a while, you would have noticed that I changed the title to the first entry from 'the vision', to 'the purpose'; I am still not resolved as to what the title should be.

In graduate school, I worked at one of the worlds leading visualization research labs (VRAC, Iowa State University, go Cyclones). Part of my project was to figure out how to create an image in three dimensional space that would describe multi-dimensional equations. We see things in three dimensions. Math uses equations to describe complex systems with equations have more than three dimensions. So part of my job was to figure out how to render images of these multi-dimensional equations so that we could interact with them and see how the shape changes as variables change. I was not very successful creating anything of value in this part of my research, but I had good coffee and muffins in the small room where I defended my thesis, and I think the aroma satisfied my professors enough that they let it slide. Although I think there is a solution to this problem, no one to my knowledge has found a good one, so I hope anyone who has tried to present a solution also has good coffee in the room. It's helpful if the presentation is made first thing in the morning; academics are notorious for working late nights.

After studying that problem, I concluded that a vision was something I could re-create in the form of an equation, and ultimately something that could be conveyed through a projector to a screen. Like TV. In a world where tele-visions are the primary media in which I receive a majority of the information that forms my perspective of reality, I have come to expect that any-vision will come by paying 90 bucks a month to Time-Warner. And since I am too busy to receive my vision when they have scheduled to transmit it, I pay an extra 5 bucks a month for the ability to record the visions and watch them commercial free when it is convenient for me. Just as an interesting side note, 'tele' is Greek prefix meaning distant. I looked up the Greek word for 'vision', and found one definition that read, 'the power of sight'. I never thought of sight as a power...I wonder what other secret powers I don't know about.

The speech above caused me think about visions in the form of an experience. An experience is more like art than math. Although, I would argue that math and art have a high correlation, but that is for another thought. Free Lunch is the product of a journey. The journey is an expedition to discover the unknown. An exploration of the places where truth and beauty and love and understanding are hidden. An excavation of ancient ruins to find out what remains of lives and cultures from history. When light hits the unearthed artifacts that remain, maybe I will know what will remain from my life and my community. These are all things I want to experience in my life.

I am having trouble creating some thing that renders the whole vision of Free Lunch, when I try, the vision eludes my description. It’s like trying to use a bucket to skim oil off the top of a lake. When I lift my bucket up thinking I have all the oil contained, I look back and the oil I didn't get has once again re-covered the small amount I was able to scoop up. I use the same method to try again...this vision is expansive.

It doesn't matter what you believe about life and death and God, but the Scripture that was referenced in the speech has been one of the most studied collection of letters and stories ever written. I think that so many people have studied it (regardless of belief) because it contains this mysterious power to speak to you wherever you are at on your journey, at whatever depth you are traveling. And no matter what depth you are at, or what depth you think you are at, its depths are not charted by any earthly map. My point is not to get you to read the Bible, but to draw some conclusion as to why I am compelled to write about Free Lunch. I like the stories in the Bible. I know a little more about who wrote them, and the people they are about when I read them.

I write because I want to be known. I want to share my life with the people I care about. I want to open the doors to the parts of my life that I have a hard time talking about in conversation (which is nearly everything, I am shy in a crowd). I write because it is the best I can do to convey a vision that I think is worth sharing. I won't be able to do it well, and that is why I am not satisfied to let this vision turn in to a dream. I am going to do my best to experience it. I hope the remains that are found one thousand years from now are more than a pile of dust and ashes.

*Gilead, by Marilynne Robinson, see also, Gilead

on wisdom, naivete, courage, fear, beauty, truth and the fourth lunch

2006-10-26T10:30:00.000-05:00

i had a chance to sit down with nancy last thursday. actually, i sat and she stood up, nancy cuts my hair. i go to see nancy about every other month, and for an hour we share our lives with each other. i look forward to our conversations because nancy is my friend. nancy also has a better understanding of style than anyone else i know, and that is why i trust her with the all important haircut. my vanity and high maintenance lifestyle become abundantly clear to me every time i go see nancy. last week nancy and i talked about giving with wisdom.

a good friend of mine commented on an earlier post by giving a quote from gordon cosby, "The most helpful experiments are accomplished by people who are too naive to know what they are getting into. The wise and experienced know too much to ever accomplish the impossible." I don't know the full context of cosby's comment, but it got me thinking about wisdom in giving. nancy told me a story about how a man approached her and her grandmother and manipulated them in to giving some money. the man got the money, and nancy got to give to the poor. sounds good, right?

weeeeeeelllllllll, i don't know. i feel a little uneasy if i give it the ok stamp. similar to a feeling i had when another friend asked me if it was ever ok to lie, and gave the situation of hiding jews during the holocaust and being questioned by german soldiers on the hunt.

the uneasy feeling comes from using a lie, or manipulation or whatever you want to call it, in order for a person to get what they want. a homeless person wants food, and a scared german wants to protect their jewish friend. the result is good but the methodology is broken. business books classify a productive member of a company as one who produces good results, methodology is secondary. i want friends, and i want to feed homeless people.

i am going to go out on a limb here and make a few statements that may be wrong, and that i have not done the work to fully prove, so if you disagree or find a flaw, feel free to comment:
lying creates results that naivete is not able to see. when a person lies, not only do they have to somehow make the lie look like reality (which isn't reality at all, and thus requires that the liar lives somewhere other than reality, even if for a moment), but, depending on your belief system, they have done something wrong. to move on in reality, the lie has to be reconciled, or else the liar lives in a warped reality.

truth creates one result. it is clean, there is nothing unaccounted for, everything reconciles, and the story is simple because it is the truth and the truth is simpler than a lie; truth exists in reality, a lie does not. it is easier to talk about reality than it is to talk about something contrived. truth creates one result that has several names but i will call it beautiful. naivete can be defined as artless simplicity. a naive person can talk about how they feed a hungry person, but a truthful person can tell you why it is beautiful. truth allows a person to give freely and receive freely. truth knows that it takes courage to do something with real consequences. truth knows that it has something to fear, that there is a real enemy.

the path to knowing and applying truth is wisdom, and the beginning of wisdom....is what we are all searching for.

patrick did free lunch this weekend because i got to see my best friend get married on the beach in florida. i had a few feelings as i was listening to patrick tell me the stories from the weekend...by the way, patrick has the award for the most hilarious free lunch weekend, and you will have to ask him about it because he tells it best...i felt pleased that free lunch was happening in my absence because this is a step in the vision of creating a model that others can repeat. i felt loss that things are not the same as they used to be. i am following this vision that was given to me, and trying to stay true to my role in the story, and i know my role will change with time. i will miss out on certain things because i am required to fulfill another responsibility. i felt proud of patrick because he added something that i could not add. patrick is really good at striking up conversation and making people feel comfortable. patrick is clear about his purpose too, he likes the idea of feeding hungry people, and free lunch serves as a conduit for his purpose which is much bigger and of more consequence than merely feeding people...

i have opened up a number of different subjects in this post and i am trying to figure out how to tie them neatly together and come to some conclusions so all this reading amounts to something. but i am afraid i don't have many conclusions, and i don't even know the question that allows me to find the next step. maybe i opened up more than i can handle to write about...i have a tendency to do that sometimes...

if someone tells a lie in order to get a lunch, they might come to expect that they have to lie to get anything from me or anyone else. a lie does nothing to build a relationship, it only destroys. i want to build a relationship with the people i meet, and wisdom would tell me that i should not allow a person to lie to me in order to get a meal, even if i intend on giving them one. how do i do this? how do i recognize a lie? how do i reconcile a lie in a relationship? how do i move on? how do i offer truth? how do i guard against lies? how do i build a relationship with someone who has possibly never experienced a truthful relationship? what is my responsibility?

i have more questions than answers, but i know a few things. it is beautiful to see a vision come in to reality, it is beautiful to see desires fulfilled, wisom gives sight to see things that are beautiful and i have only seen the tip of the iceburg.

if you know some way to finish this post, please comment. and if you find yourself at the end of this post feeling as if you didn't get to the end (which is how i feel right now), read the comments. i am friends with some good writers.

help!

back to the purpose

2006-10-24T22:24:00.000-05:00

i had lunch with kevin today and i was telling him about free lunch. he stated the purpose back to me in such a way that i had to write it down. the purpose of free lunch is not to feed people who don't have food or community, it is to eat with people who don't have food or community.

sometimes when ideas are shared, people respond by pointing out all the hurdles, and complications and reasons why it won't work...as if anyone who is trying something new needs more to overcome...good intentions often times just need help steering and seeing. i have been so thankful for everyone who has cared to share their opinion because you have added new insight, new understanding, new wisdom, new language to free lunch.

it is easy to become self absorbed and choose to look at what i don't have, but when the people around me have helped build free lunch by whatever they have to add, it makes it easy to see what i do have, and what i have to give. and those are some sweet shades to be wearing when the sun is rising over a new horizon.

development on the business side

2006-10-22T23:45:00.000-05:00

i recently had a conversation with a guy who goes to third world countries with his company and builds metal buildings that serve for different purposes in their communities. he told me about a charitable foundation that helps start up organizations get established as 501(c)3 non profit companies. they have a lawyer on hand that will help get the company started, and the even issue grants to some of the start ups.

this was a very cool conversation and i will tell you why. i have started asking a few people if they would consider working for this company if it were formed, but i don't have the necessary resources right now to pull it all together. so to find an organization that is geared toward helping start ups get established takes a large burden off my back to do research and find out how to file the correct paperwork and make a legitimate business that people can donate to and work for.

i have had several people offer to donate money, in fact, someone gave me money that i didn't tell about it. they had heard about it through another person i told, and just wrote me a check. that is really amazing for a couple reasons, but the one that blows me out of the water is that i didn't have to do anything. by word of mouth, one person told another person and that compelled them to write me a check. i didn't have to do any fundraising, money is just coming in the door. another person gave me a large amount of food they had left uncooked from a bbq. i am not asking for it, and it is just happening.

this comes back to the need for a business entity to house this project. i need to have someone who will be responsible for keeping track of the funds and food that are coming in. i want to be able to give people a tax deduction, but i don't have the time to keep track of it all.

so now i need help. i didn't quite expect this to be happening quite yet, so this is a good surprise.

thanks!!!!

2006-10-22T23:38:00.000-05:00

i just want to say thank you to everyone who has taken some time to look at this blog and read it in the past week. i have just gone public with all of this by sharing this website with the people i come in contact with, and i appreciate the feedback and encouragement you all have given me. it has been another fulfillment (one that i didn't expect), from this effort. your encouragement and feedback tells me you care enough to take the time to read, and then share your thoughts. thats the kind of community i am talking about. thats the kind of community i want to have. the kind of community that shares a desire to do something, anything, and cares enough to make that thing good.

thank you all, i will keep sharing my thoughts as this develops...and i appreciate your encouragement along the way.

selling out

2006-10-20T14:44:00.000-05:00

as you can see, i have decided to subscribe to adsense today. maybe one of these days this website will be viewed by more than 10 folks, and google will spill some of it $750,000,000 quarterly profit (thats right, seven hundred and fifty million quartlerly PROFIT), over to this little effort.

happy clicking!

third lunch

2006-10-14T16:44:00.000-05:00

today was the third lunch. the newness of this is wearing off, and a routine is setting in. a typical day goes like this:

10:30 - head to the store to get groceries (i have become quite the bargain shopper)
11:15 - get back to the house and make lunches
12:15 - drive downtown
1:45 - all done

i usually go to the 23rd street bridge (formerly known as the courtyard), and look for the people i know down there, then i make my way towards downtown, stopping under bridges and through allys to find people hanging out (this is my favorite part, because sometimes i offer lunches to people who probably aren't homeless, and that makes me laugh, sometimes they are offended...), and then i head up to the east side and when i get out of the car, it takes no time to get rid of everything.

there are a few things that were pretty cool about this week. the routine is getting predictable, and it is easier to tell the person i am with how to do it and what to expect. i have taken a new person with me each time to talk with them about what i am doing, get their feedback, get some time to hang out with them and get to know them, and so they can tell other people about free lunch. it is always easier for me to get to know someone if we are working together to get something done. community happens in the margins (making lunches, going to the store, driving around, etc.), and that is the whole purpose of this, to develop community.

i run in to a few of the same people every week, i got to see chris again this week, a guy i met last week. chris always has a lot to tell me about the people who are chasing him down and how he has to protect himself because he has enemies, and you never know when they might come after you. i don't know exactly what is going on with chris, but i am glad i have run in to him a couple of times.

a few folks up on the east side recognized me when i pulled up, and that is always nice to be welcomed back. they usually take their lunch and run, so i don't really know any of them yet. i hope that i become a familiar face and be able to hang out for a while.

the familiarity of the routine is something i look forward to. it's like any regular routine, i take care of business and try to find the things in the routine that have meaning. i ask myself, what is important about this? there are a few things that are necessary to make it happen, but what is the essence of this routine? what should i really care about? i don't know the answers, but the search is great.

a few questions

2006-10-11T00:12:00.000-05:00

a few questions have surfaced in the last few weeks, here are my thoughts...

why not just give to an organization that is already doing this?
there is not an organization with the same vision. the vision is community, and realizing that we are all cut from the same cloth. we are all people. everyone needs lunch and everyone needs a friend. the main purpose is NOT to feed the hungry. it is to be in community with the hungry. in a community, there is expectation from both sides. a relationship is not a one way street. i am buying these relationships by bringing food, and it may be one sided for a while, but i expect to care about these people i meet and to be cared for as well. that's right, they have something to offer, they have just rarely been asked, so they may not know it.

is this going to be organized in to a non-profit company?
yes. lots of work to do here, i am looking for a person to run the administrative side of this.

why?
to build a model for community. i will keep this as simple as possible so that others can repeat what i am doing easily. i can only influence a handful of people, but if i build something that others can duplicate, then my efforts can be multiplied.

second lunch

2006-09-30T19:40:00.000-05:00

this saturday started off great, i saved over 25% with my bargain shopping at the grocery store. i have come in under budget both saturdays.

i got to the place i normally go to meet folks, and it was fenced off and the sign i had posted on thursday night was torn down. my hope in this little experiment was dashed. apparantly, the buildings that border the vacant lot are being redeveloped, and they are kicking all the homeless people out of the area.

so i drove around and handed out lunches at a few of the places i knew people gathered. i ran in to shawn again and he was happy i remembered his name. i also met his friend brenda, and they were both drunk. it was 1:00 in the afternoon. they appreciated the lunch and i am glad i ran in to shawn again.

i drove around for a while seeing 1 or 2 people that i thought needed a lunch, when i offered them a lunch, some were confused, some were happy, and some weren't homeless! oops. i hope they weren't offended, i just laughed.

i had about 15 lunches left over as i approached a scary part of town. it was the middle of the day and i feared for my life rolling in to this place. i saw a lady stumbling her way on the sidewalk, and got out to give her a lunch, and there were about 50 people that started coming for my car. i knew i didn't have enough lunches, so i was wondering what was going to happen when i ran out. were they going to get nasty? they didn't, they just walked away wishing they got something.

i saw something today i haven't seen very much of before. people in need. people with kids, people with mental problems, people who were hungry, and people who were hopeless. these are the east side people. on the west side, i feed drunk homeless people that are happy, and easy to be around, and funny, and dramatic, and the kind of people i normally hang out with, they just have a different address and a different wardrobe.

the east side people were different. i felt different around them. i felt scared, and hopeless. they swarmed like insects in the desert on a fresh kill until all the meat was gone, and when it was gone, some went away hungry. it was really a hopeless place.

i don't know if bringing lunches gives them any hope, or makes any kind of difference, but something was different over there. i don't know what it was, but i felt different. i felt out of place, threatened, and somehow that was a good thing.

i am still going to stop by and give shawn and brenda a lunch when i see them, but my new location is on the east side.

first lunch

2006-09-18T23:59:00.000-05:00

as i was driving down to the spot where i met butch last saturday, i was envisioning a welcome party for the food i was so graciously and generously about to give. noon on saturday, i told butch and he told me. i got there and found no one. not a single person. so i waited.

its funny to me sometimes how much i have planned. i am one of those people who can visualize exactly what i want, down to the details, and sometimes (most times) i take it a tiny bit too far. i plan for the reaction of someone else. i plan out how they are going to greet me, how they are going to be helpful in setting up the table and food, i plan for their jovial response as we all eat lunch together and we find out about eachothers lives...i plan for all kinds of stuff i have no business planning for. when i am let down that my plans didn't work out, i keep getting reminded of the fact that i can't plan for an outcome, i can only hope.

there was a spectacular airshow in town last saturday. i could hear the planes soaring overhead as i was waiting. i was thinking about more names for the location since my friend told me i couldn't name it 'the courtyard' (i still like that name). i started looking at the graffiti on the walls to get some ideas, but the only word i could see was a very artistic rendition of the word 'crack'. i don't think i can call it 'the crack' either.

at about 12:45, shawn came wandering towards my car. i asked shawn if he knew butch, but he didn't, so i offered him some lunch. i asked if people came down to this bridge very often, and he said people were down here all the time, and i joked with him, 'just not now right?' Shawn informed me that everyone was probably down at the airshow.

i gave away a few lunches, and then i left the rest on a concrete support i had planned to use as the table we would all sit on as we laughed like old friends in the late summer sun. i left a note that said 'free lunch, take one, again in two weeks, noon on saturday'. i was pretty sure that people would be there later so i felt comfortable leaving all those lunches sitting there. i planned that they would get picked up by the folks who live down there. i planned that as they passed, each person would take one and only one lunch, and then go tell a friend. and maybe they would sit around and wonder who the nice person is who gave them each one lunch.

so what conclusion can i draw from this? i have a few things i can choose from:

i failed
butch failed
i tried my best
what i did was good in a charma kind of way, and goodness was increased in the world, and the credit goes to some higher power who will feed its children as they pass through on the way to anywhere, and they will be transformed by the time they get to the other side
everyone likes to see an airshow

of all of my choices, i liked the last one the best. and i think it is the truest. when it comes down to it, most people in america will get food from somewhere, but airshows are precious. so savor them when they come to town because they may not be back soon.

i think friendship is a gift. i can't plan who my friends are going to be. i can't plan what will bring us together. i can't plan the time or the instant or the loss or victory that will bring us to be close friends. all i can do is show up, be present, give it my best, and be thankful when something great happens.

giving

2006-09-14T00:15:00.000-05:00

my last two posts got me thinking about the question, what do i give to a person in a relationship? what does a person receive when they spend time with me? what do i have to give? what is something that i possess that i can give to another person?

i don't assume to have the answer to these questions. but i have some thoughts. i think community, a circle of support, is formed when people want the best for the other people. when one person wants the best for another person and the desire is reciprocated, a bond is formed.

so what does this look like? what language describes this thought? in order to want the best for another person, it is required that their needs are more important than mine. does that mean that i sacrifice myself so that another person is better off? a sacrificial lifestyle doesn't sound appealing to me. could that be what it is all about though?

if we need friends, and the way to form a bond is to regard another person as more important that ones self, and live that way, what is said about the person who is offering the sacrifice? whats in it for them? maybe nothing, maybe something, maybe they do it because someone else made a sacrifice for them once, and they want to pass the gift on...

so what does this look like? i am going to try to know these new acquaintences of mine. i am going to try to get to know their needs, know where their life isn't working right and if i have something to give, i am going to do my best to give it. i am afraid that i will have nothing to give, but i have got to give it a shot.

the other side of the coin is to allow my new little community to know me. will they have something to give me? i don't know. what do they have to give? after all, they don't have homes, they live under a bridge, what can they possibly give me?

this saturday is the first big step in this community experiment. i am going to serve lunch to a few folks and see if a bond forms. of course i have no control over what they decide to do, but my hope is that something happens.

finding the location, and my first acquaintance

2006-09-12T23:02:00.000-05:00

i needed to find a location for my little experiment in friendship. so i drove around last saturday looking under bridges, in the projects, keeping my eye open for drug houses and vacant lots downtown. i came across an alley that lead to an empty lot under a bridge just south of downtown. i was nervous as i drove in because there was only one way to get in and one way to get out. i am a white boy in the hood and i am going in to uncharted territory.

i saw a group of homeless people under the bridge and i thought to myself "you are crazy, these people are going to rob you and take your car." then butch waved at me as if he expected me to be there and i drove over to him after i locked my car doors.

i rolled down my window and introduced myself. butch has hair that is out of control. frizzy grey hair on top and an unkept beard. he is the nicest homeless person i have ever talked to. i told him about my idea and he was immediately on board.

let me tell you a little about myself. i am not an outgoing person. i get anxious in big crowds. one of the hardest things in the world for me is to walk up to a group of people i don't know and introduce myself. butch told me that he would get as many people as i could handle to our little courtyard lunch under the bridge.

by the way, i wanted to call this location the courtyard, but a friend told me it was a bad idea. "no one likes to be in court, and a courtyard is in a country club, not under a bridge." i am rethinking the name.

i told butch i would be there this saturday with lunch. i hope he shows up with a few folks.

the purpose

2006-09-12T22:51:00.000-05:00

the purpose of free lunch is simple. when everyone starts talking about their needs, we all become equal. we all need friends and we all need to eat. why not eat lunch with friends? only two things are needed, lunch and friends.

so where am i going to get my friend? i am going to go find one, or a few. i asked myself, who else needs a friend? who would accept me as i am? who would accept me if i gave them lunch? will someone be my friend for no other reason than a free lunch? can i live with that? who knows what will happen. i am going to give it a shot.