Homeless people don’t need to be grateful

I don’t like green eggs and ham

Recently, I was searching the internet looking for a scrambled egg recipe that serves 200 people for one of our Relational Meal Events. Every single recipe I found contained comments about how the eggs turn green in large quantities. Something about the aluminum pans or the amount of time from prep to serving…

I really wanted to serve good scrambled eggs because I was told that quality breakfast is hard to come by on the streets.

As I continued to search, I started to think, “Shouldn’t they just be grateful? It is free scrambled eggs!”

Gratitude for garbage?

What many of us don’t realize is that homeless people are always given second best. They get the day-old pastries from the bakery and the expired goods from the grocery stores.

They’re handed doggie bags from our meals and expected to say “thank you.”

By expecting gratitude for garbage, we devalue them as people.

After all – what do you do with your expired food?

Picture this: You’re at a nice restaurant and the waiter comes up at the end of the main course and says, “We have a complimentary dessert for you tonight! I hope you enjoy it. It’s free!”

He places a large piece of chocolate cake on your plate with strawberry compote as the garnish. Initially, you’re excited. But then, you notice that the frosting is actually a big patch of mold and the strawberry isn’t compote at all – it’s just so old and wilted it’s turned to mush.

Will you thank the waiter for your “complimentary dessert”?

Love the person

Now, I will be the first to tell you that it is incredibly disheartening to spend 5 hours lovingly preparing 18 batches of baked goods from scratch only to arrive at the outreach and be passed up for the free fried chicken at the table next to ours.

It is these occasions in which it would be nice to receive a “thank you.”

But how often are we serving homemade baked goods (or even fried chicken) instead of day-old leftovers?

Let’s choose to value the person rather than give them scraps with attitude.

What would you serve your house guests?

Honestly, it’s easy to get restaurants and bakeries to donate their day-old food. It’s not easy, however, to obtain donations of food that we’re proud to serve our friends.

And these guys are our friends. We want to invite them to a yummy meal with good company. Will you join us?

Here are 3 ways you can help:

1. Call local restaurants, share about Babysteps Ministry, and ask if they would donate a meal to one of our Relational Meal Events.

2. Purchase a prepared meal for us.

3. Donate any amount. Just $1.72 feeds one person.