In life, one must always take the good with the bad. You cannot have the good without the bad, and you can't have the bad without at least experiencing some good. It's a fact of life.
This past Thursday, we welcomed DJ Ciprian to the 9th month anniversary of Serve Charlotte's Homeless meal service. Firstly, 9 months...wow. That accomplishment alone is worth celebrating. Reflecting on where the nonprofit was at the beginning is somewhat comical...We started with 5 volunteers, 20 homeless people, and a large desire to bring about real change.
And, real change followed. Nine months later and we now have 6 partnering agencies, a pool of hundreds of volunteers, and between 50 to 80 homeless people who depend on us for food, vital supplies, and socialization.
The hardest part of attending the meal service for me, personally, is the amount of pain in the room. I see their faces and I feel their pain, and at times it is so overwhelming that I wonder how much longer I can let it eat away at me. But, on the other hand, feeling that pain is good for me because it makes me work that much harder to help my homeless clients.
As soon as I arrived last night, I saw one of my homeless clients that I would have labeled as one of my success stories. Through a lot of communication my volunteers helped him turn his life around. He was doing so well, he had climbed out of homelessness...and all of that changed last night. Him and his girlfriend are homeless, again. It's one of those instances that I look at from outside the situation and wonder, "where do I go from here?"
The Good News
As I mentioned before, we welcomed DJ Ciprian to the meal service to DJ for the homeless. It was such a relief to see my homeless clients smiling and somewhat carefree. DJ Ciprian lifted their spirits and healed their souls. There were 65 homeless individuals in attendance last night, and just knowing that DJ Ciprian brightened their day through music, makes this day and every day at the meal service that much more worthwhile.
