As many of you know, I am and have been deeply involved with Veteran Homeless issues.  I am starting a non-profit company with the purpose of taking showers, toilets, and washer/dryer capability to all of our homeless and needy neighbors (to include families with children).  I intend to start in the Nashua/Manchester area (closer home) until I get up to speed and see what the real requirement is…then on to Concord and other cities/towns in NH (and beyond?).   My thought for the name of the company is ‘Shower Them…’ which you can fill in your own thoughts…  with water, with love, with life’s necessities, etc.  A single Mission Statement might be: Providing assistance to the homeless and those in need – where they live.

I have a deep conviction that the humanization and survival of these folks is a personal/ethical responsibility that rests with each of us.  Rather than simply waiting for ‘the government’ to do something to help them it is time for us to get out there and provide assistance.  ‘Put your money where your mouth is’ kind of thing.  Many of these folks were dealt a bad hand (corporate failure/downsizing, failed marriages where the partner cleaned out the bank and left them with nothing…) and are not there of their own accord.  We have an opportunity, no a requirement, to provide help in whatever form we have available to us to give them a 2nd/3rd chance at life.  I fall back on the statement, ‘There, but by the Grace of God, go I.’  I have been blessed in my life and it is time for me to give back.”

This touched me: deeply.  I had been homeless for a while after I got out of the military.  I had found myself across the country with no work at first, nowhere to live, and no way to leave.  I couch surfed and got two to three jobs to try to get on my feet, sometimes working 21 hrs a day seven days a week.  Eventually this schedule led to me getting sick, and with no medical insurance I was at rock bottom.  But God had other plans for me: through some friends I had met a woman who was an EMT, and out of desperation I called her at midnight when I could barely breathe.  She loaded up her infant children and drove out to get me and bring me back to her house.  She got me antibiotics (walking pneumonia), and nursed me back to health.  She also told me I wasn’t going back to the place I had been sleeping (with no heat in winter); but that I was staying with her till I was better.  If it wasn’t for her, I wouldn’t be here.

So this is my way to pay it forward.  This is my way to contribute.  This is my way to try to keep someone else from having to face the prospects of having no prospects.  I am blessed, and I have to share that.