Project Kengikat

Food for Thought

// March 31st, 2010 // Uncategorized

Cooking is what I did for a living. I fell in love with cooking at an early age, but never thought it would be something I would ever do, but for a huge part of my life, food was very much what I did and if I say so myself, I did it very well.

Food was very much my passion and to be honest it was something that I thought I would be doing for the rest of my life. Funny how life can show up and take you down another path. Life showing up really wasn’t a bad thing for me, because through the hardships of life showing up I learned and I am now living my purpose. The very cool thing is that my passion gets to play a role as well.

Through 29 months of homelessness I learned so much, but one of the lessons I learned was the fact that food served by many missions, shelters and access centers is most times is spoiled or very close to it. During homelessness I always had diarrhea and sometimes very severe stomachaches. This only was the case after I had a meal from of the these places. So what did I learn to do? I learned which trash cans to eat out of. It is truly a sad state of affairs when a person results to eating from a trash dumpster rather then going to a mission, shelter or access center to get a meal.

This is where my passion came into play. Early into my outreach I had this desire to provide meals that we healthy and nutritious, but how was I going to do this while I was homeless myself? Pretty much the same way I started my first outreach while I was homeless. Do Something Saturday was born by blogging about what I wanted to do and today blogging is still a huge way for to me share the work I do.

The meal outreach started out pretty basic by offering things like fresh fruits and baked good along with Cliff or PowerBars. Jumbo Jacks and Taco Bell were also passed out to homeless people.It then grew to bag lunches, but not the like spoiled bag lunches given out from the local access center in Santa Monica. In fact it seems that all missions, shelters and access centers all use the same place to make their horrible sandwiches that always seem to be served on bread that is hard or moldy and sometimes both. Soon one of my supporters offered their small kitchen to prepare and store food and my meal service began to grow to offer a limited number of hot meals.

April 2007 marked the first full scale large meal, feeding over 100 homeless people in Santa Monica, Venice and Downtown Los Angeles and 60 seniors from Venice. The summer of 2007 also saw the first homeless picnic on Santa Monica Beach and three BBQ’s to feed homeless people in Santa Monica and Venice.

Last year the meal program was given a new life from some supporters and kicked off with a week long outreach that feed high quality meals to over 100 people. The meal program grew and soon started offering meal cards from McDonald’s as well as Jumbo Jacks from Jack-in-the-Box and breakfast sandwiches. In all the meal program has been a huge success.

Shortly after April 3, 2009 and the start of the second outreach, Unpluggin’ HIV, I gave the meal program it’s name “Kick Start Meals” and today is still going strong. I also created “Sunday Dinner” geared toward feeding homeless people a home cooked Sunday dinner just like I use to get as a kid.

Today “Kick Start Meals” is part of many Do Something Saturday outreaches as well as the Unpluggin’ HIV outreach down on Skid Row as well as the stand alone “Sunday Dinner” outreach for homeless people in areas such as Hollywood, Santa Monica, Venice, West LA and Downtown Los Angeles thanks to the love and support from many supporters who have come to not only embrace what I am trying to do, but also respect it.

It’s really cool that I have found a way to take what I am passionate about and find a way to fit into what my “NIA” (purpose) is about. It is the coolest feeling in the world to wake up each day knowing that I am living a life not filled with fancy and fake people, places and things, but a life filled with compassion, unconditional love and purpose.

As I conclude this blog entry I am reminded of a poem I once read. I am not sure who wrote it, but it has been part of me for a very long time, so I will now share it with you.

The purpose of life

is to be useful

to be responsible

to be honorable

to be compassionate

it is after all

to matter

to count

to stand for something

to have made some difference

that you lived at all