Last week, I started doing one of my favorite things: Picking up the phone to thank donors to our winter fund drive. By Dec. 31, we’ll receive gifts from 800 or more of our supporters to bring us to our audacious $200,000 goal.
This year, because we want to reach everyone we can, I’m sharing the phone calling with our board. I’m happy that they get to participate.
There’s something very humbling and grounding about these calls, something much bigger than the phone call itself.
When I’m lucky enough to get someone on the line, there’s this sort of awkward mutual wonderment that goes on, and the usual words never seem quite adequate. The call usually goes something like, “Thank you!” and, “No. Thank you!” with the word “amazing” cropping up a lot in between.
Here’s my guilty confession.
As Real Change has grown over the past 20 years, my ability to wrap my head around what we do has not kept up. I always feel that my own appreciation, for our vendors, readers, staff, board, volunteers and allies — all the thousands of people who make up Real Change — is inadequate to the enormity of the task.
My own head and heart are not big enough to take it all in. Maybe that’s right. Maybe it’s arrogant to think that just one person can comprehend a whole community. Maybe that’s something that only all of us, together, can do.
This being Thanksgiving week, I’m working on this.
I’m thinking of all the reasons Real Change makes me grateful. I’m thinking of all the many gifts I see along the way and can never appreciate enough.
I’m thinking of a female vendor I talk with whose life is hard by any standard. I’m thinking about the shitty, abusive and impoverished childhood she suffered at the hands of her junkie mom, and how her eyes light up at any glimmer of justice.
I’m thinking of another homeless vendor who struggles with chronic pain and poor health, who came to Seattle for work and hides his homelessness from his family back home. Who, despite his troubles, has hope and purpose and hundreds of friends who, at least in some small way, let him know they care.
I’m thinking of how, for him, all of these small, daily interactions add up to make going through one more day of life outdoors something worth doing.
I’m thinking about all our vendors who live on small fixed incomes and are fortunate enough to be housed. And how Real Change helps them with the little necessities and pleasures that many of us take for granted.
I’m thinking about how, every day at Real Change, over and over and again, some variation on these stories takes place. I’m thinking about all the pain and suffering that has been eased over 20 years, and all the lives that have taken a turn for the better.
I’m thinking of all the friends that have been made.
I’m thinking of the last issue of the paper, which I read cover to cover, and how proud I was when every article felt compelling, important and necessary. I’m thinking of all the good work contained in just this one, tiny snapshot of our movement for justice.
I’m thinking of the whole community of advocates and organizers that we’re fortunate enough to be a part of and support, and how none of us can accomplish much on our own.
I’m thinking of how each of us, in our incompleteness, comes together with others to light our way through these dark times. And I’m thinking that we have much to be grateful for, including the paper in your hands and the person you bought it from.
Real Change is all of us together, each doing what we can. Please take a moment during your Thanksgiving week to visit realchangenews.org and make your gift to the 2014 Winter Fund Drive. We’d be very grateful.