Knock On The Box
12-11-2008
What an interesting night to go out and drop off some food to the homeless. Started the project with picking up the gang (Jesse Yamashito, and Paul Kemp) The preparations started a few days ago, when monetary donators gave us some cash to buy some food goods. This day in particular, Wednesday, Jesse was the one that made all the preparation of the food. He trekked from his home to 99 cents store, about 1 mile away, and back, walking. After picking him up around 4 pm, we figured it was a late start, but figured we had to make the push, even if the sun is down.
Ironically, before we went out, I had posted an update on my Facebook, and stated “Russo is about to do another brown bag food give away in skid row. Hopefully no problems arise.” I should have withheld those statements as, incidents did occur.
So as we started our drive around, we figured we can try and find some homeless people away from downtown, and maybe give all the food by then. This way we can try and avoid Skid Row, due to safety at night. Come 5, 10, 15, 20 minutes into it, we were not having any luck. In my eyes, and the group, there seems to be no homeless around. Could it be true that Los Angeles, and the developers have bonded together to ship them out in the outskirts of San Bernardino area? So we pushed on, as we were bound for downtown area, we got stuck in street traffic, hardly even moving, at most 5 mph. As we were trying to figure out on the shortage of the homeless, we suddenly get rear-ended by a white Lincoln Town Car. The impact alone was hard enough, but no one was injured. But a pedestrian had witnessed and heard all of the impact. We pulled into the right to investigate, luckily I was driving my pick-up truck. The guy who struck me, tried to down play that he actually hit my truck, and that there was no damage to the truck. All along the pedestrian was starring and laughing in the side walk. After I checked with the group, and everybody seemed ok, and there was little damage. I figured, we were in good spirits, so I decided to let the guy go, “get out of liability free card”
Continuing on, we managed to arrive in downtown, we made a turn into Los Angeles streets, and here we can across a group of homeless people who actually lived in boxes. So we stopped and started to give out the brown bags, as we handed one out, the first guy we gave a bag to, had asked us to “Knock in the box” of his neighbor. I tried to with held my giggles, as I found that to be somewhat funny, and was not use to it. Sure enough Jesse knocked and left the bag at the door, per say. This very same group, we also handed out used clothes, esp. jackets and pants.
As we went deeper in the heart of Skid Row, we came across more and more interesting people. We drove up into this one street, where they were all line up behind the fence with the shopping carts and boxes. One by one we handed food, and to highlight this part, a man with a cell phone, blue tooth, looking like a bum, manage to get his hands with one of the brown bags. I guess our homeless group is now more sophisticated than ever.
Overall it was a good productive afternoon. It was another feel good side project, which I hope others can get inspired, and make a difference.
Thank you for taking the time to read this blog.
RM
Just an update on what has been going on in the last few weeks. We have also teamed up with Café Princesa for their efforts in collecting goods. They now are working with Toys for tots, which eventually in the future we can team up on other volunteer projects.
Plus, in the last three weeks, more and more people are donating more goods. Up to this date, we have two full boxes of goods to donate. So we are still good for the target time to drop it off to the LA food bank. Thanks to all the donators who help contribute for the holidays!
Today is our first run at giving some food individually to the homeless, headed by Jesse Yamashito, he was inspired by the campaigns and wanted to do more. So we have decided to team up once more to make some food and actually hand out some brown paper bags filled with food. We have decided to head to downtown LA, which many of the homeless are, most of the few hours we are driving, we are looking for anyone who is interested in getting a quick meal. Before that, we are going to spend about 1-2 hours preparing the food into the brown paper bags. So far, others have donated monetary to help pay for some of the expenses we have in buying the actual food goods. 
We are excited to announce the companies that have jumped on to help with the cause. See below for some of those companies.
Location: Southern California
Spanish-4-You is an effective, practical and fun program designed for busy people that need to learn Spanish fast but with a solid foundation at the same time.
Bio: Jesse Yamashita
Bio: Paul Kemp
Bio: Marta B.
Bio: Laura ZayasHas teamed up with us for Donation Campaign
Ms. Laura Zayas was born in Puerto Rico. An enthusiastic academic, she currently holds two Bachelor Degrees; one in International Relations and the other in French, both from Tufts University.
She also holds two Master's Degrees; one in Education of Foreign Languages from UCLA, and the other in Spanish Literature and Linguistics from Cal State, Fullerton.
Greetings fellow blog readers, this is Russo. Tis the season for giving, and it’s time again to coordinate another food drive for the community, and now medical supply, and kids shoes drive. This year we have new volunteers working with us, and want to thank them for taking the time to do so. Read some of the volunteer profiles in this blog. In the past I have personally worked with the LA Food Bank on a solo project, but did not really get good results with collecting canned goods. As time passed, I have realized that in order to get a better response from donators, I have to be able to work with volunteers to help spread the word, plus to go out to major super markets or stores and collaborate on this project. So this year, we are going on our small “campaign” to try and collaborate with the local community business. So wish us luck!!
Food Drive 2008, this year will be different, hopefully bigger and better! To start off, we have listed the objectives below on our plans to get the project going.
1) We need volunteers from the LA region to help coordinate with local super markets, shoe store for kids, or pharmacy store. Volunteers will collaborate on donation drive in front of business facilities. They will need to contact the business facility to ask for permission to set up a small booth or table to target passing customers.
2) Volunteer times can vary from 4-8 hours per week. Check this blog for specific times on when we plan to go out into the business facilities.
3) We are looking for canned foods, medical supplies, un-used kids shoes, or non-perishable goods.
4) Most of the canned foods will be forwarded to the LA food bank. Medical supplies will be forwarded to non-profit organizations abroad, kids shoes will be forward to a non-profit organization based in Houston Texas.
We are working with the medical connect community bloggers and friends to collaborate with medical supply donations for third world countries. The idea is to help collect supplies such as gauzes, tapes, bandages, anti-septic, anything that is non-perishable, or does not expire. These supplies will be handed to medical organizations abroad who are currently volunteering their time to aid the sick and unfortunate.
We want to thank you for taking the time to read this blog/message, if you or anyone you know is interested in working with us for the up-coming donation campaign, please feel free to forward this link to them ** http://2008fooddrive.blogspot.com/2008/11/food-drive-2008.html ** Lets make the world a little better by sharing and caring. Anything is possible, when we make an effort to.
Sincerely,
Russo Mutuc
www.spanishforsuccess.com “You’re Spanish Abroad Destination!”
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