I was just sitting here thinking, feeling very proud of
myself. Yes I was very successful in life before my accident that put me in and
out of hospitals for 9 months. I lost everything including my home, family and
became homeless. But I’m more proud of the fact that I have in my eyes turned
everything around.
I started selling Big Issue magazines instead of going on
Disability pension. I started helping other homeless along the way even when
times were tough for me, buying food and things for others when I had extra
money.
I am proud to say I have made some incredible friends
selling the Big Issue and together we started doing free food, clothes and
toiletries at the park for other homeless and people in need. 400 turned up at our first event.
We kept doing our Homeless BBQ’s every 8 weeks for about 5
years now and they have gotten bigger. Every event I didn’t know if we would
get all the food, clothes and toiletries to hand out for free but we did it.
Not one coin is exchanged at our events, except if a homeless gets a job on the
day, then I grab a hat and race around to all the volunteers and ask for tips
to helping pay for work clothes, accommodation, money on Go-cards for travel,
lots of food and things like that. But a lot of times I try to save my money
from selling mags to pay for it without passing the hat.
With smart people doing all the work we started a non for
profit charity called “Signal Flare” which I still have not figured out how to
get it big enough to receive a wage for all the great work I do haha
As I said we do these events every 8 weeks, the next event
is going to be the hardest and biggest one yet. 10th of October at
Musgrave Park 10am – 2pm. You see I understand that a lot of homeless and
people in need have mental health issues so at this event we are going to be
doing a joint event with “Sanity Fair” which helps brings all the Mental Health
services there.
There’s a lot of things I still don’t know how we are going
to do it, this will be huge. But I know quitting or canceling the event will
never happen. It’ll come together. Volunteers needing that’s for sure.
Homeless will be able to get free food, clothes, toiletries,
blankets, kids toys and much more while seeing what all the mental health
services do as a service. Now this is going to help a lot of people.
I have often said I don’t do all this, it’s the community
coming together to do the “Aussie Mate” thing and offer to help a person when
they need a hand up. Everyone hits hard times.
I have been invited to at least 50+ weddings from people
that have got on their feet, meet someone and thought enough of me to invite,
some even asked for me to be ‘Best Man’
We have had employers come to these events just to offer a
homeless person a new start and give them a job which is awesome, yes I have
been offered to but with my injuries and things I would only be letting the
employer down, beside I’d rather help someone else.
I see so much good karma coming back in my own way, you see
I was very unwell and spent time in hospital, so many people came to visit me,
homeless and working people that I thought at one stage I might have to do a
rooster for visit times. Haha
Best of all why I’m feeling so proud right now. I see so
many smiles and get so many Thank You’s that I know I have made a difference.
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Grant the Polite Guy
Grant Richards
0142 190 011
grantthepoliteguy@gmail.com
