”I had contacted The Five Loaves and asked them if we could come and work alongside them and they were thrilled. They didn’t have anyone making soup at the time and the idea of people actually knitting things for people who were living rough was wonderful, so once a week I go to The Transit Centre in Molesworth St on a tuesday evening. There’s little core group of us that go down. I usually make a big pot of carrot, sweet potato and pumpkin soup and put in as many veges as I can so it’s very nourishing for them. This is like a community meal, we stand around and share soup and bread, have a laugh and you see there are connections within the community of people that are homeless or doing it really tough. My heart aches when I see mums and young children living on the street.
We take our hand knitted scarves, beanies, gloves, and socks. You know I didn’t really know what homelessness meant. There’s different sorts of homelessness, living in a tiny car when it’s so freezing cold. I hear stories all the time from these people who are so appreciative of the help they get and are so amazed when we put our knitted items out, They say ‘are these for us?’ ‘did you knit these for us?’.. There’s a lot of love that goes into what we take down. It’s a heart connection too with people.
I think it’s really easy for people to lose hope and not have any purpose in their life if they feel that people don’t care about them. Statistics are great but sometimes statistics keep us separated from people and I thought what can I do with what I have. Sometimes this world gets so dark and fear pushes us back into a corner and says it’s too big, I can’t do it!..where for me my faith says there is something we can all do. It doesn’t matter how small it is!
One fellow, Frank, big bloke who lives in his car, takes a scarf every week to give away. I asked who he was giving them to. He said ‘people that are worse off than me Jeanne!’ So even in this culture of homelessness and living tough they still care for each other and I love that. That saying ‘there but by the grace of God go I’..that creates a gratefulness in our heart and you know with all that’s going on with our government that’s so oppressive, there’s no compassion or human kindness. We have to be the face of human kindness and that’s where people power comes in. It works!
Since I started the ‘Human Kindness Connection’ page so many people have come on board. We started with the knitting because it was cold and knitting things, its an act of kindness.Then the soup, now we are making up street survival packs where we are putting together toiletry packs for men, women and children of things that we take for granted…toothpaste, toothbrush, comb, soap, deodorant, a clean pair of socks, wipes etc.in a ziplock bag. At the moment we are funding it ourselves by knitting beanies that people can buy and we also receive donated goods. I had young lady drop off a bag of amazing toiletries and she has a young family and is struggling herself. It’s often the way, those that have little give most.
We had a lady ask for another beanie and when she took hers off she had no hair as she was going through chemotherapy so she really needed two beanies to keep her head warm. We don’t know peoples stories, it puts life into perspective, it’s a very humbling experience.” I’d like to see a lot more people come on board. These are simple things and really achievable for people but when you realise how much it means to the person on the other end who’s receiving it, it’s the highlight of my week going down there.”
You can drop off any donations to Jeanne at ‘Black Pepper’ at the square or through the Facebook page