This email went out to our list of supporters and interested folks on June 16th of 201. We send something like this out most months – if you would like to get on that email list, please go here and give us your email address. Of course, we won’t share your info with anyone, and you can unsubscribe at any time.
Tony was introduced to me by a formerly homeless man whom I had helped several years ago. “Tony is a good guy,” my friend said. “He just doesn’t have anybody.”
After meeting Tony, I did not have high hopes. He was living in a half-way house that has a reputation for not being particularly well run, he was six weeks sober and was a convicted felon.
We agreed to start meeting on Thursday mornings at a local coffee shop. On our first meeting, he told me he wanted to die, because he saw no way out. That was four months ago.
Every week, he tells me about the stress that comes from living in a house full of addicts. We talk about the endless search for a job that will ignore his felony record that came from a petty drug charge. I show him coping methods to help manage his stress. We drink good coffee (which you pay for) and he shows me pictures of the ex-wife and kids he drank out of his life.
While I am the one sitting in that coffee shop with Tony, you are the one who makes it possible.
Over the last four months, a few times you have helped him make the $98 weekly rent it costs him to stay in the halfway house. When we met, he had a prepaid cellphone that cost .60 cents a minute to use. He was spending over $100 a month to stay in touch with potential employers. You bought him another phone that offers unlimited minutes for $35 a month.
When he got a part time job unloading produce trucks in an un-air-conditioned warehouse, you bought him a monthly bus pass so he could get to work. Tony is fifty years old and has poor circulation, so when the doctor prescribed a medicine to help with his circulation, you paid the $5 to get the prescription filled. Oh, and it was a prescription he had carried around in his pocket for a week, because he did not want to ask for help yet again.
Last Thursday, Tony asked if I could run him up to the dollar store, so he could buy the one dollar package of detergent to wash his clothes. When we got there, I saw him eying the toiletries, so I convinced him to let you pay two dollars for a pack of razors and a new deodorant stick. He counted out his pennies and nickles for the detergent, however.
When we get back in the car, he is silent. When I press him, he tells me that he is filled with overwhelming gratitude. I try to wave him off.
“No,” he says. “It is a big deal. When I met you, I wanted to die because I was convinced no one cared. Please tell the people who give you this money that I am so grateful. That I could not have made it this long without you guys. And that while it may not seem like a big deal to them, it has changed my life. Hell, it probably saved my life.”
I agree. A big reason Tony has stayed sober these six months and stayed housed and stayed sane has been because of the work you people pay me to do. Yes, you paid for his toiletries and bus pass and helped a couple of times with his rent, but you also paid my salary that lets me spend two hours a week with a felon in a coffee shop.
If you are one of our contributors, Tony and I both thank you. If you have not yet decided to help support our work, I hope you will, because I know lots of Tonys.
