Leave the gun take the cannoli (9)

The hallmark of a great man is his willingness to help others succeed and his unconditional loyalty to his friends. Allan Sih lived a quiet life of purpose, dedicating most of his free time to helping friends and strangers in their hour of need.

As a long time New York Cares team leader, Allan spent the better part of his weekends volunteering with people who were struggling with life altering illnesses. He also enjoyed an active social life, maintaining friendships from his teenage years to his final days.

Allan had a strong sense of empathy and the ability to organize everything and everyone in the midst of chaos. His only discernible weakness was the way he made coffee.

When I met Allan he was struggling with a coffee pot at NYU Rusk Institute. We were setting up the snacks at his monthly social event for patients with spinal cord injuries. Alan had carefully measured the water and scooped out a minute amount of grounds. I grabbed the pot, scooped a heaping pile of grounds into a paper cup and said “trust me, and everyone will stay awake through BINGO.” That was the beginning of our friendship and charity collaboration. We chopped vegetables at God’s Love We Deliver, read to kids and served lunch to the homeless for over seven years. We also ate at every vegetarian restaurant below 14th Street.

Allan knew how to pick a restaurant, where to buy the best green tea in bulk, and how to get the best prices on electronics. He was also an expert on chili.

As a former president of the New York Texas Exes, the University of Texas alumni association, he never missed the annual chili cook off fundraising event. He considered himself a Texan as much as he considered himself a New Yorker. I think he was born in Asia, so I guess you could say he was a citizen of the world. And he lived everyday of his life trying to make the world a better place.

Allan Sih’s Memorial will take place on May 7th from 12 to 3 pm at Hill Country, 30 West 26th Street, NYC.
(212) 255-4544

This season even the most posh, high end stores in NYC are slashing prices and  offering deals.  But nowhere could you find a better bargain than collection of free coats and sweaters offered to the homeless and low income clients of the Village Temple soup kitchen. 

The congregation of this reformed Jewish synagogue are unusually generous.  Twice a year they  clean out their closets and offer all their extra items to the poor.   Gently used coats, boots,  ivy league sweatshirts and stadium blankets  are snapped up by clients who’ve forgotten what its like to pay retail. 

My New  York Cares volunteers help to transform  the temple foyer into a  chic salon as they act like personal shoppers and fashion consultants.   Every “shopper” walks away with a  coat  and a bag full of sweaters, scarves and everything they need for either a job interview or holiday celebration. 

Although donations were down,  slightly, this year we were blessed with enough merchandise   to extend the coat give-away for an extra week.        

The hallmark of   Roxie Salamon-Abrams photographs is her ability to elevate her subjects from the ordinary without pretension or cliche.   

During her  senior year at Stuyvesant High School in 2007,  Roxie  accompanied her  father on a buisness  a trip  to India.  The images she captured are a stunning synthesis of insight and inquiry.  Women deep in thought as they go through the paces of their daily chores seem oblivious to Roxie’s lens.    Rather than focusing on the poverty of the rural areas she visited,  her portfolio focuses on the teamwork and pride found in building a community.  Even her shots of smiling children are candid and unaffected.  

Currently a freshman at Tufts University, Roxie’s  work provides  the back drop for  “The Village Temple Indian Connection”  a special Shabbat celebration on the main floor of the temple that hosts NYC’s best  soup kitchen.   

Roxie is the daughter of William Abrams,  the president of Trickle Up, www.trickleup.org a non-profit that offers grants and micro-enterprise development in the most impoverished areas of the world.    

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.                             

Making conversation with the homeless is easy.  Start with  a simple “how’s it going?” and you end up to with an hour of childhood memories and  war stories.  

Last Saturday,  I served coffee to three generations of homeless men at the Village Temple soup kitchen.  More than two thirds of the men that come in every week are veterans.  The older men served in World War II, the baby boomers were drafted for Viet Nam and the thirty somethings were in Desert Storm.   There are over 6,000 homeless vetrans in the five boroughs according to the statistics buried  in New York City’s  daily newspapers last week.   Sandwiched in between advertisements for Vetran’s Day coat sales and sports scores this news item was as easily over looked and forgotten as the homeless themselves. 

 Its no wonder that the suicide rate is so high in this population.  According to research from SPAN USA, veterans are twice as likely to take their own lives as men who have never served in the military.   SPAN volunteers launched a letter writing campaign to help  two survivors, Randy and Ellen Omvig gain support for the Joshua Omvig Veterans Suicide Prevention Bill.     President Bush signed the bill into law on November 5th.  One  small victory for the men who won the wars.

This week hunger advocates around New York City are wearing orange to draw attention  to the number of empty food pantries across the city.  Dozens of e-mails have appeared in my inbox to persude  me to update my wardrobe with the autumn hue.    

Colors for causes are confusing and   remind me of pseduo- gangs rather than social justice.  But   I’m willing to risk looking like a squashed pumpkin for a week in an effort to get the word out about  the NYC hunger crisis.     

Actually, the problem of hunger in the United States is severely understated.  Every major city in the country has seen a rise in the number of senior citizens and families living below the poverty line. 

Newsletters from food redistribution centers are aimed at an  audience  already familiar with the plight of the working poor.   Hundreds of families  throughout  the five boroughs  rely on free school lunches to feed their kids.  They line up for vouchers  form food pantries  every November so they can put a turkey on the table at  Thanksgiving.   

 I’ve seen a spike in the number of clients we serve every Saturday at  the Village Temple soup kitchen.  In less than an hour we give out over 200 hundred sandwiches and  about 300 cups of fresh homemade soup.  Fortunately, we’ve never turned anyone away empty handed, but for the past few weeks we’re lucky if we have  two apples left over at the end of the day. 

Saturday was ice cream day at Village Temple, the gourmet soup kitchen on East 12th Street where I spend my Saturday afternoons.  Stephanie Ching  and Jim Wong,  from New York Cares,  treated 210 homeless and low income clients to a special dessert of homemade ice cream  from Alphabet Scoop, New York’s most nurturing ice cream  store.   

Alphabet Scoop was created by   Carol Vedral, the executive director of Farther Heart’s Ministry as part of a mentoring and outreach program targeting at risk kids from the Alphabet City neighborhood of Manhattan.   Open from April through December, Alphabet Scoops offers kids 14 and older the chance to learn job skills.  Each employee starts off with a training class, where he learns how to make all 16 varieties of the product  from scratch.    A mentor is assigned to each teenager for support, encouragement and friendship.   Working after school and on weekends helps these kids to learn responsibility and accountability while earning a paycheck. 

Profits form Alphabet Scoop help to support other Father’s Heart Ministry outreach programs, such as their soup kitchen and after school program.