Two packs of cookies.

So, what are your expectations for today?
Help as many people as we can.

You think it’s gonna be hard?
I think we might be limited due to the weather.
We’ll see what happens when we get down there.

What is your plan for the next six months?
To get back into the housing somewhere, so I can return… go back to school.

Do you have a plan to get there from here?
No. No, actually I’m looking for a sponsor. Somebody that can help me get into a boarding house or halfway house.

Here in Jacksonville, or any particular area?
I came here from Kansas City, Kansas, looking for work.
All right, I’ve been peddling around the country for years, and that was 20 years ago. I am ASMA certified. I worked for Boeing Aircraft. I’ve worked for Armco Steel. I’ve worked for several piece shops.

You know, right now my interest is… my strong point is English.
So, I would like to start a paper called The Homeless Speak.
I answered an opinion paper called The Homeless Voice in Philadelphia, and it went viral.
So, when I got down here, the chief of police told me, “You need to start this paper.”
I’m ready to answer an ad in the Folio now.

What’s the Folio?
It is a Jacksonville-based paper.
They call it the Folio, but there’s a lot of opinions of that.
I mean, you will hear from Rodney Baker, without a doubt.

You know, we need food, we need shelter, because nights are so hard out here.
You know, between the weather and the police making you move so much, and me being handicapped… that’s a big hardship for me.
I mean, that’s hard to do. Everything I do is under duress.
I’m 64 years old.

So, more security down here, you think, would be…?
We need it bad.

What are your plans? What would you like to see?
I would like to see more people out helping.
Yeah, there’s a shortage of hands-on. There’s a real shortage of that.

You know, we’re not mad. We don’t hate. We don’t discriminate.
We certainly don’t throw things, but we’re upset because we don’t have anybody to help us.
Dry socks and t-shirts — it’s a commodity that’s hard to get.
Unless you’re stealing from Walmart, you just can’t do it.

The only time I’ve ever paid, you know, when I’m scouting out of town, and I’m trying to get back in town.
If he gets stuck in Middlebury, it took him three days to get here.
He didn’t have any choice. I was down in Mandarin.
I was dead broke… I had all my bags and stuff.
I ain’t walking from Mandarin back to here.
So I sat there at the gas station, “Hey, you got enough of me…”
“Oh yeah, here you go, get you out of here.”

It took me 11 hours to go to my doctor’s appointment in this wheelchair, because of the cost of the bridge.
I mean, we’re all families out here. This is what we live with.
But we got our groups, you know. This is how we live out here. It’s feast or famine.

What would you say was the difference between your expectations and then like what was actually out there?
I think I expected to hand out more bags, but we kind of got tied up with talking with Rodney, and it started getting dark and decided it was time to head out.

I was kind of surprised that people said no.
We had what, two no’s right out of the gate. I did not expect that.

How did you feel, safety-wise?
I think, overall, we were still in a pretty safe area.
Probably one of the safer areas that we were in.

What were some of the major things that the people out there wanted?
The majority of the items were clothing.
So socks, dry shirts, and then Rodney also talked about different grocery items we could get — instant coffee, breakfast items.
It gets cold down here, but not really that cold, so the fact that the homeless population is already thinking about blankets in September when it was high 80s, tells you that that’s definitely an issue come wintertime for them.

What parts of the experience did you like?
I think actually just getting out there and helping people.
You can see it on their faces that they’re appreciative of the items that we were giving them.
It may not have been much, but it meant a lot to them.

The biggest thing that stuck with me was the girl that was sitting there.
When we left, she said, “Thank you for your time,” and I thought that was probably the most interesting line out of the whole day.

It was…..They want to be heard, and I think that was something that they were trying to communicate with us. That people don’t come down there that often, and every little bit counts.
But I would say, even if it’s something small, more often is probably more of an impact.

So, what would you say was the worst part?
I would probably say the worst part was just getting down there at the time that we did.
I think if we had gotten down there earlier, we could have helped more people.
They also mentioned that they do try to get in a nap mid-afternoon, because the streets are rough at night.
Maybe even going down there mid-morning to help pass things out.
I think we might interact with a different group down there at that time, too.

So, if you had the opportunity to do this again — and I know you will, and we will do it again — what would you do differently?
I think just going out earlier. Potentially, also having more bags, but also having some of the items that they’re looking for.
So whether it’s socks, or different clothes, or things like that, that we can help provide them… even blankets.

Rodney is a big fan of instant coffee.

Is there anything else you would want to tell people who are going to go out there and do what we did?
Go out earlier and be aware of your surroundings, but also know that you can help out a lot of people.

Did you have fun?
I did.

So, you’re gonna do it again?
I will.

So will I.
High five!