Leave the gun take the canoli

Tim Gibson, the silver fox of my NYCares/Caring Community food delivery program is issuing an interesting humanitarian challenge.  He’s asking  his fellow volunteers to set out on a scavenger hunt for usable crutches, walkers and canes that he will personally deliver to the needy through Crutches 4 Africa.    In February, Tim will embark  on  the Abercrombie and Kent private trip around Africa.  His goal  is to collect as many mobility devices as possible and distribute them to people suffering the effects of polio, birth defects and landmine accidents in the most remote and impoverished areas of the continent.

“There are thousands of crutches, walkers and canes out there,” insists Tim.  “It’s just a case of finding them. And once people know where they are going, and they will be given away for free, the closets open.  It’s wonderfully simple and effective.  Someone’s broken ankle here becomes a lifeline to someone who can now become mobile for the first time in their lives.  They get dignity as well as mobility.”

Hand delivering these gifts  is exciting and heartbreaking considering the  physical conditions of the lucky recipients. “I’ve seen people who literally have been born with no legs … their bodies just stop at the hips.”  Tim recalls  “one guy who was punting himself around on a large skateboard.”

Information on Crutches 4 Africa,  its founder David Talbot and ways to help can be found on  their website at www.crutches4africa.org.           

In this age of political correctness, it should be glaringly obvious that something is missing during the month of May.  Its a time of year  devoted to the celebration of  motherhood.  Florists and card companies increase their earnings exponentially  by  the second Sunday of the month as we  honor our mothers, step-mothers  and pregnant friends.   On the other 30 days of May  you can hear hymns echoing  in  convent  gardens  and  Catholic church yards.  Little girls dressed in blue execute  the coronation ritual by placing a flower wreath on a statue of  Our Lady.    Yet,  we simply  ingnore  the virtuous  work of the women  who fill the maternal void in the lives of orphans,  the depressed or the  dying  by acting as a spiritual mother.    

I don’t know who coined this phrase, but I’ve  heard the term used by people of many denominations to describe women who mold the moral character of   children who are not their own.

Every May I make a concerted effort to  keep in touch with my  former teacher and friend Sr. Camille D’Arienzo by attending “An Evening of Mercy” at the Yale Club.       This event is one of the few award benefit/fundraisers that actually inspires humble humanitarian service.   The room is always filled with people who are quietly changing the world through outreach to the  poor and disenfranchised.

This year, Sr. Karen Schneider was honored for her work with children around the world.  Sr. Schneider is a pediatrician from John Hopkins University  who  travels to the poorest  countries to  care for orphans with malaria and fix  cleft palates.   

Sr. Camille is an advocate for social justice.  She’s been changing lives for  generations by showing compassion to everyone, including death row prisoners.          

Its amazing how quickly adolescents grasp the concept of social justice.  While contemplating their  place in the world and defining their own  value system teenagers cultivate compassion  for the outcast and disenfranchized.  

Recently, 12 year old  Bea Genco and I  had a very erudite dicussion about the lack of clean drinking water in Africa and the number of starving children throughout the world.  She posed some very sophisticated questions regarding humanitaran aid  and government involvement in feeding the poor.    She wondered how  individuals with limited resources could  make a difference in  the world.  So, I showed her two of my favorite web sites;  Charity: water (http://www.charitywater.org) and FreeRice (http://freerice.com).

Charity: water sells bottled  water for $20 and 100%  of the proceeds go toward digging wells in  Africa.  FreeRice is an English vocabulary building site that   helps to fight hunger through the UN Food Program by donating 20 grains of rice for every word the user  gets right.   This site is sponsored by advertising revenue.  FreeRice is fun and I  spend a few hours on it whenever my insomnia kicks in.

I challenged Bea to go to FreeRice and try to learn 100 new words.  I told her if she could donate 500 grains of rice in 10 days I would buy a bottle of water for her from Charity: water.     Bea had so much fun playing around on FreeRice that she donated 13,820 grains in 7 days.        

The best gift you can give anyone is your undivided attention.  Five minutes of your time is  precious  to someone isolated by illness, dementia or loneliness.     On Christmas Day, 86 exceptionally generous New Yorkers, my favorite couple from the U.K.  and my three new Australian friends gave their time and energy to the  clients of Caring Community.

 Co-ordinating volunteers for Christmas Day was  like assembling an all white jigsaw puzzle.  Tom Marrone organized the delivery routes  to accommodate my penchant for overbooking volunteers.   A normal delivery route has 7 to 10 clients.  But for Christmas he divided each route so that the volunteers could  spend a few minutes engaging every  client in a conversation. 

Tom had asked for 40 people and was expecting a mere 31, but I  can’t say “no” to someone  who wants to do a good deed.  So, by 10 a.m. we had  a crowd of   smiling faces  eager to cheer up the   shut-ins of Greenwich Village with a hot meal and a small, brightly wrapped gift.

My best regulars, Lauren and Marciano Estigarribia, Charity Diaz and Fredrick helped me organize my New York Cares team and  the City Meal On Wheels crew.   New recruits, Joel Mejia from Things Are Changing , Dara Shinler and  Amanda, Anita and Barney  were quickly teamed up with someone who could show them the ropes and sent out to spread good cheer.            

 By noon all of our jovial  volunteers had returned.  Many of them had anecdotes about our colorful clients. 

 Amanda, Anita, Barney and   I  went over  to Our Lady of Pompeii Church on  Carmine Street to serve at Caring Community’s Christmas Diner.   Every year the basement of the church is transformed to look like a restaurant with large round tables  that seat eight.           

We joined  Ginger, from the Wildhearts, and Jane Graley  who were already  hard at work waiting on tables.      I made my way around the room talking to each guest as I served the salad.    The faces were familiar and I was happy to spend yet another holiday with my extended Caring Community family.

As a New York Cares team leader, I got to take the bow for the 300+ clients we fed and greeted on Christmas.  But my friends, and fellow volunteers from City Meals On Wheels and New York Cares deserve a standing ovation for helping to allievate lonliness in NYC.       

 Organizing all of my holiday projects this year would not have been possible without the help of my good friend Barbara Genco and her daughter Bea.  They worked behind the scenes, entertaining my home-bound mother so I could wrap gifts, collect coats and run food drives.   Bea Genco  stops by after school every week to have tea with my mom.  The entire Genco family, Barbara’s  husband Mike,  son Micheal and even her brother Greg Johnson rallied together to help get my mom out to a party at their home on Christmas Eve.     

In the shadows of the fast food restaurants and construction scaffolding on Fourth Avenue, several  families share a single  two bedroom  apartment.   The effort it takes to keep a low profile exceeds the energy expended at coveted factory jobs or  the hours of hawking bootlegs on the corner.    South Brooklyn is like a jigsaw puzzle of sub cultures that tessellate into a   familiar image.   Transplanted mid-westerners are changing the landscape of the area formerly known as the premiere stop after Ellis Island.  Illegal immigrants are camouflaged by first generation Americans who retain the culture of their forefathers.  Luxury condos overlooking the cemetry add to the quirky charm  of a neighborhood where far too many of the neighbors are in need.   

On Monday afternoon I leaned against the traffic light and passed out flyers for yet another food drive.  Feeling frustrated by  the steady decline in donations to the local food pantry,  I wondered if I was wasting my time.  

 Then along came Jayson, a wide eyed five year old who tried to snatch a flyer from my hand.  He is only in Kindergarten, but already Jayson has expressed an interest in feeding the homeless.   His father  asked me for some information.  “My son wants to do this” he said, “just tell me where he can bring the food.”

On Friday,  Jayson returned with his father and a box full of groceries.  He had collected twenty pounds of rice,  a few boxes of cereal, as well as,  an assortment of canned soup and beans.     “I hope you get 100 pounds of food” he  said as he shook my hand.    We decided to weigh the food he’d brought.  Jayson had donated  38 lbs . Then we weighed the other donations.   Altogether Jayson and I had collect 115 lbs and 14 oz.   Not bad for week’s work.                             

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Stop wondering if  you are smarter than a fifth grader and start worrying about which version of Sean Kingston’s “Beautiful Girl” your favorite fifth grader is listening to.   If you’ve ever doubted that common sense has been shafted by  a nebulous interpretation  of   freedom of speech, surf the top 40 stations and compare the two versions of  this  catchy melody.

 In the first rendition,   Kingston relies heavily on repeating the word “suicidal”  as if its just another begnign adjective.     Shivers run down my spine as I flash on the 31,000 families a year who are devastated by suicide in this country.  As the third leading cause of mortality for Americans  in the 10 to 24 age group,  this  subject is too serious to mock.      

 Kingston did put out an  alternate version where the phrase ”in denial” replaces the “S” word.      

I realize that this subject has been lifted up in song before.  But how many people really know the words to the theme from M*A*S*H?  And how many artists have given us the freedom to choose?         

   I’ve spent the better part of last night e-mailing radio stations   to voice my concern about the song.   I’ve called radio request lines and requested the alternate version.