Twenty Nine Degrees and Rising

Sleeping Rough with No Blanket

When coming in to my day gig I spotted someone lying on the pavement. It’s not part of my job description to help every person I see in the area but in this case it was 29 degrees outside and they looked cold. Guessing (hoping) they were not out all night. Gave them a blanket, socks, cupcakes and a cup of hot tea. An hour later they had moved on.

Please note - unlike some other organizations claiming to help people on the street, Nirvana WOK will not publish pictures of people’s faces. I think it’s important to show photos of the horrible situations some people are in, but at least give them their privacy. If we do ever use images of identifiable people in the future we will ask permission and they will be compensated.

In another crossover with my day job, I made the call that some donated fruit needed to be given out. I knew it wasn’t going to be used that night, and I didn’t work the next day - meaning that it might not be totally safe in 48 hours. Moisture makes food perishable and plastic clamshell packages trap moisture. What happened to the concept of putting fruit in a paper bag? Fruit needs to breathe.

Again, it’s not in my job description to go around handing out food - I do that in my spare time. On the other hand, the organization I work for serves free hot meals every night and also has an outreach program that gives out food, socks and whatnot. They ain’t gonna mind if I do this once and a while.

The eBike delivery system I have going is working great. It took not even ten minutes of my lunch break to drive around and give away about 20 containers of fruit. Just pulled up to small groups of people and asked them if they wanted fruit and handed it out. “Thanks bro” and “thank you so much” are the most common responses.

—Alex

Supermarkets donate a lot of food that is past the sell-by date. We’ll take it.

Nirvana WOK Online: nirvanawok.com • Gmail • Instagram • Twitter • TikTok • Facebook • YouTube • Venmo • Donorbox • RedNote