Blog post #4: Meeting Daniel…

1. My partner, Mahdiya and I have been very successful with our action project these weeks. Not only last week did we get fully prepared for our adventure. Nov 13 was a very eye-opening experience. Mahdiya and I headed to downtown Vancouver with Kristi Blakeway and my mom (Kristi’s best friend from high school). to start our day. On the way to Vancouver, in the car, we made candy bags to give out (we made around 80)! We had long chats on what our day was going to be like and about Kristi’s past experiences. Our plan was to hand out candy bags then when we met someone willing to share their story with us, we were going to take them for lunch. When we got there, we almost immediately met some people and started handing out goods! There were so many people on the streets. I was in shock. People of all ages sitting out there in the freezing cold. It was so crazy to see, and I didn’t even realize all this before. There were so many kind people that we met. We had been walking for only a couple blocks handing out candy and that’s when we met Daniel! Daniel had come up to us. He asked if we were handing out anything (later to figure out he has diabetes and needed something to eat). He was super kind, so we asked if he wanted to grab lunch with us. We started walking and he started telling us about his life story. Just after walking one block, he already told us so much about his hard life (for more details Kristi has a blog post). We got lunch at Tim Hortons. We wanted to go to a different café, but vaccine cards have to be shown and many of the people on the streets don’t have the vaccine. We talked, laughed, ate food, and shared stories. It was nice to know that we gave Daniel a nice warm lunch for that day! I wish I could do that every day. After a nice lunch we walked some more then sadly had to say goodbye. For more details about our day you can go to Krisi Blakeways blog! 

https://beyondhello.org/2021/11/14/we-all-want-to-belong/   

        2. We have finally succeeded in our journey of going downtown and meeting someone who lives on the streets. We got to meet someone named Daniel and got the opportunity to take him our for lunch! Taking him out for lunch was fun and we got to hear his story of his life. I will never forget hearing his perspective of everything. We also made candy bags and got to hand them out too many people. The whole experience was a very valuable lesson and I hope many more people get the opportunity to do the same thing that my partner and I got to do! 

       3. One challenge my partner and I had to face was leaving Daniel. It is so sad when you hear someone like that’s life story and then one moment you have to leave everything you just talked about. It was very hard, but we knew the time would have to come. Even though we had to leave him that doesn’t mean we would ever forget his story. I had never met someone like Daniel, but I am so happy that I got the opportunity to. His story will never leave me. The whole experience was so eye opening, and I am grateful I had the chance to do it! Hopefully one day I can see Daniel again! 

      4. Next, we are going to try and go again with Kristi back to downtown or we will make care packages to give out for the next time we get to go. Since we had gone and learnt what would be good to bring for the next time. We also can talk to Kristi for ideas to put in the care packages. Hopefully sometime soon we can repeat the day! 

Here are some pictures from the day!