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It was a hot and humid, sweaty summer night. A fellow student and I were walking the streets of Cincinnati dressed in dirty, shabby clothes. We had not washed in three days. We had slept in our clothes. We had been turned away by a variety of organizations, and met with locked doors at a few churches as we searched for sources of food and shelter.
The Salvation Army helped us. They gave us a voucher for a night at a local urban "hotel". It was as dingy and low-down as the ones you can imagine in 1950's B movies, but it was shelter with a lock on the door. And they gave us vouchers for a local fast food place.
When no one else was there for us, the Salvation Army anted up.
We were grad students taking a summer course on urban activism. First, we were about to get a small taste of urban hard life. We were dropped off in pairs in a strange city for two nights and three days. We had a quarter for a phone call and our social security cards for ID. And that was all we could take with us. We were instructed to not bathe for two days prior and to wear the oldest clothes we had. We were told to keep secret the real reason we were in town. We were, to any who asked, homeless, down and out, and without options. We could only speak to each other and to strangers.
We had spent two days being insulted, and even worse, ignored -- not looked at, but looked through. People didn't want us to exist in their world-space. That was clear. There were no kind words.
One middle class woman insulted us, telling us how ashamed our parents must be, and then spat in our general direction.
We had to beg for food money. Our first night was spent alternating between the bus terminal, sleeping sitting up -- or trying to grab a few winks on the benches near the fountain in the town's central square.
By the time we reached the Salvation Army, we were tired, disillusioned, smelly, exhausted and out-of-sorts. But that didn't matter to the Salvation Army.
They didn't ask how we had fallen so low. They didn't force us to sit through any religious talks. They just helped us. And they treated us with dignity. I will never forget how wonderful it felt when the woman who was taking down our bogus information offered us glasses of cold water. She treated us as though we were real people.
The past two days events had made us forget that.
So every year when the Salvation Army Christmas red kettles appear on street corners, I dig deep.
And when I donate, I tell the men standing at the kettle ringing the bell, "Once, a long time ago, The Salvation Army helped me when no one else would." And I say," Thank You."
Granted it was a small experience, certainly not one which could replicate real poverty. We had a safety net. We knew the time would be over soon. But for those in the group who had never had to deal with any level of poverty, it was earth-shattering. For those of us who knew poverty, it still had real impact.
Here is the power of an act of kindness. For the past 30 years the Salvation Army is the charity I think of first when it comes to Christmas giving. Their theology is very different from mine. They are much more conservative than am I. I know that in a discussion of political and spiritual issues, we would have a lot of areas where we did not agree.
But they didn't let that matter one sweltering night in Cincinnati when I needed them. And so, each Christmas, neither do I.
What charities come to your mind during the holidays? What enduring act of kindness changed you?
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