His name is Gary. I met him outside of my office one afternoon and talked to him for a while.
“I’m homeless, but I am staying with relatives,” he told me. “But, I don’t have a blanket,” he said with a smile as if it didn’t really bother him. He then told me that he only has one pair of socks, that bothered me more than it bothered him.
“I’m gonna’ get a job - I’m looking,” he explained as he told me he was disabled. “I just want a few hours so that I can get my own place,” he said. I could not help but to notice that his backpack was also ripped and falling off his back.
Today, thanks to an unnamed friend, I gave him a new backpack, a new queen size soft blanket, a pair of gloves and a pack of new socks.
Horace Mann, an American politician and educational reformer from the 1800’s once stated, “Doing nothing for others is the undoing of ourselves.”