Street Feet

Street Feet - it's not just a catchy phrase I came up with to title my post - it's a phrase used on the street, referring to a condition in which your feet actually start to rot from being in damp socks and shoes all the time. Gross, eh? Well, it's a reality for about 3,000 unfortunate people living on the streets of damp and drizzly Vancouver. They can usually manage to stay warm and dry somehow, but if their shoes get wet, their feet stay wet..... and eventually rot.

One of my fellow church-goers here on the North Shore had a huge burden on her heart for these people and decided to do something about it. She organized a sock drive and started spamming our inboxes reminding us to bring extra socks to church to donate to the Sox Box. As a result, we collected 499 pairs of socks.

Last Sabbath after church we headed to the Down Town East Side (the not-so-safe part of town, where a great majority of these people can be found) to hand out socks, hot drinks, apples and pastries. We set up a tent on the sidewalk and started handing out the goods. The hot drinks were appreciated, the apples and pastries were a treat, but the socks.... they were gold!

In such a materialistic and affluent society, it seems like the least we could do to help these people. But it really mustn't end there. We must not think, "Well, now I've done my good deed for the day...week....year.... I can go back to my comfortable life." Instead, it should just be the beginning of reaching out to these people, meeting their physical needs, and by God's grace, hopefully we can meet their spiritual needs too.

We plan to continue to collect socks, as well as gloves, scarves, underwear, and shoes, because these are also much needed on the East Side.