Junior High Bake Sale
Did you know it is illegal to hand out food to the homeless?
First Baptist, Church on the Hill Junior High Minisitry decided we would bake some goodies and sell the to the congregation. The proceeds would be used to purchase lunch food that we would pass out to the homeless. It was quite an effort. We spent an evening baking, a Sunday morning selling the items, and a Sunday morning assembling the lunches. When we arrive at the park, a police officer promptly greeted us and told us we could not pass out lunches to the homeless in James Park downtown San Jose.
You could imagine we were a little confused. I chatted with the police officer to discover that these people are not just your average homeless. He said most of these people in the park are drug dealers and child molestors, with most of them being child molestors. They aren’t sure which of them are child molestors. The police are still investigating. In addition, San Jose is trying to make-over the downtown area and redevelop. So they are cracking down on activities such as passing out food to these people.
Wow, what an eye opener. Here we are thinking we are doing the Sunday morning good deed in the name of Christ, and we turn out to be breaking the law and helping people in ways that perhaps make things worse.
So the police officer points for us to go to the Salvation Army a few blocks away. He tells us that there are plenty of legitimately homeless people there. So we go, pass out the lunches and pray for the homeless there. Even the attitudes of the people seemed like night and day compared to the park. The people hanging out in the park seemed dark and untrustworthy. The people at Salvation Army were perhaps dirty and homeless, but friendly and grateful. Support your local Salvation Army.
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