Lessons in Caring

This week in front of the Ritter Center in San Rafael I met a mother and her adorable five year old daughter. They had just picked up some much needed snacks which I watched them devour before making their way to a medical appointment. We started talking and I learned that they had lived in a car in a parking lot for a year after fleeing a domestic violence situation. I’m proud to say that through necessary services like Ritter they are rebuilding their lives here in Marin, having transitioned from homelessness to being precariously housed.

Since I was delivering a bike to the Downtown Streets Team through my Homeless and Precarious Faces Project I thought to ask the girl if she would like a bike too. “Will it have one of those things on the front?” she asked, motioning with tiny hands in front of her.

“You mean a basket?”

“Yes!” she exclaimed, her smile lighting up our tiny universe.

I took a picture of the girl and her mother and posted on the project Facebook page. Within no time people were offering bikes, and that evening one of our friends from the Orca swim team brought a cute basket with a little flower on it to practice for me. The bike it had been on was a little too big.

Showing the picture of the mother and daughter to my own daughters they became very excited about helping. The basket literally looks like a little Easter basket, so they thought it would be a good idea to fill it with some Easter grass and goodies. Together put together a pretty neat looking basket for the girl!

Over the past several months my daughters have been watching me try to help my friend childhood Kelso, who is the opposite of the innocent victim the five year old cutie. Kelso is homeless in San Rafael and through his own life choices ended up that way. He’s a victim of his own undoing, and my daughters would prefer I spent my spare time helping innocent people like the little girl and her mother. However after months of meeting with Kelso he may finally be ready to start turning his life around. Or maybe he won’t.

Personally I really don’t care what someone has done in the past. I have no business dwelling on the past, I work only in the present to build a better future.  

San Rafael is a beautiful city filled with amazing people doing wonderful things, leading productive lives and moving our society forward. Unfortunately not everyone is so fortunate or has made the right choices in life. Someone like Kelso looks like a problem to many people. He’s become a highly visible blight in the community. Blights like Kelso, so unlike the light coming emanating from the little girl, are in the very small minority of the people who receive help through places like the Ritter Center but what many people are focusing on right now because it’s what they see and perceive.

Most of the people Ritter services are like the little girl, someone in desperate need you would never have seen otherwise or known even existed. With the support of our community and services she’s on her way to making a better life. There is hope for her. If we stand behind her, she will not fall back.     

Good things are here,

Good things are there,

Good things are everywhere.

Please join me in helping her and others like her through my Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/MarinHomelessFaces. If you see someone you know or want to help, please do something for them.