The Summer Solstice 2023. The longest day of the year. It truly felt like it, too. I was up early this morning so that I could build 60 peanut butter banana sandwiches. Traci came over to work on packing up all the clothes. We parted ways for about an hour. In that time her reoccurring health issue reoccurred. She was too sick to come out. I was going to have to fly solo.
I showed up a little early to meet up with the team. Kyle rode with me so that I wouldn’t ride alone. The extra nurse on board was ordered to come help out if I started to get busy. The Stanbulance contained am extra guest tonight. She offers dental care to people. She has this chemical that with one tiny drop, it can kill the nerve and infection of a cavity while also filling it in seconds. The only adverse side effect is that it makes your tooth turn black.
Pre-game talk also revealed that an agency who was working with the homeless reported their whereabout to the police. An old, abandoned school that housed several people was raided by the police and the doors barred and locked. Everyone is evicted from their tents behind the abandoned factory. The gall of evicting homeless people. On top of that, the burned down house was burned down again the night before… 3 times! I found out more about that. We’ll get to it in a bit.
The first person we helped was an older man who had a piece of blue tarp propped up over some old tent poles that were only a couple of feet off the ground. He was a very sweet man with a generous smile. We drove to a gravel lot where we knew a man who lived in a tent under some brush in the back of the lot.
His tent wasn’t there anymore. It was just a patch of dirt.
We kept walking as a group. Stan told me that one of our friends lived in the fort at the end of the alley. As the team approached the shelter, I noticed a rat. The rat walked casually over the grass, then underneath the tarp I was approaching. I announced who was there. My buddy poked out his head.
“Hi guys! Hey, Kayla! Come inside and see my new place!”
He told me the story of what happened in that last place where so many people had been living that had been burned down again. And then again and again. A disgruntled neighbor took matters into their own hands. They relit the fire twice after the fire department had come to extinguish it. I assume they were trying to make a point without interpretation.
Morris the cat was back again. I fed him again and he hung out in the van until it was time to go. There were a lot of people at that spot. I wonder where they will be next week.
I dropped off food to many more people in several more places up and down the streets, hidden in bushes.
I met a girl who had just come over there from another part of town. She didn’t have any clothes other than the ones she was wearing. Her shoes were worn this. We got her put back together again. At least the best we can.
Because that’s how we do it in Detroit. Amen.
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