Breakfast Brigade
Well, I wake up this morning at 3:30 a.m. (I almost never even went to sleep), and meet up with Alejandra, my partner in the Web site project that we are doing on the Breakfast Brigade.
Alejandra and I drive to downtown Gainesville and find a house that is dedicated to serving the poor in the community. (Notice the candle burning on the porch, which we were told was to "set the mood.")
It's about 4:30 a.m. now and we go the kitchen in this big, old house and help prepare breakfast with about seven other people, most were college students. They put us to work right away.
Here is the fearless leader of the Breakfast Brigade. His name is Johnny, he lives upstairs above the kitchen and runs a tight ship. By the way, the eggs are organic and everything else served is vegetarian. Also, he buys all the food from Wards, a mom and pop grocer in Gainesville. They give him a discount. It costs about $80 to feed about 100 day laborers breakfast.
Once all the food is cooked we put it into baskets.
Then we stood around the kitchen and someone read a passage written by Nelson Mandela, former South African president. Then we held hands and one of the college students led us in a prayer. Finally, we piled into the back of an old F-150 pick up.
We then stopped at three different corners throughout downtown Gainesville and hand out the food that was prepared. Some of the day laborers had different addictions and couldn't hold down real jobs, but most are just regular people who had jobs but were laid off and are now trying to pick themselves back up.
It was an adventure. It's amazing how many small groups of people are doing things like this without any fanfare. People know all about the Red Cross and the Salvation Army, and those are fine organizations, but these small groups are equally amazing and go unnoticed.
When the Web site is developed, I'll post the link. But it will probably won't be anytime soon, since we are working in concert with another online media class and it is they who will publish the material. We are just collecting all th information, editing it and digitizing it. They finish it. So we'll see.
Alejandra and I drive to downtown Gainesville and find a house that is dedicated to serving the poor in the community. (Notice the candle burning on the porch, which we were told was to "set the mood.")
It's about 4:30 a.m. now and we go the kitchen in this big, old house and help prepare breakfast with about seven other people, most were college students. They put us to work right away.
Here is the fearless leader of the Breakfast Brigade. His name is Johnny, he lives upstairs above the kitchen and runs a tight ship. By the way, the eggs are organic and everything else served is vegetarian. Also, he buys all the food from Wards, a mom and pop grocer in Gainesville. They give him a discount. It costs about $80 to feed about 100 day laborers breakfast.
Once all the food is cooked we put it into baskets.
Then we stood around the kitchen and someone read a passage written by Nelson Mandela, former South African president. Then we held hands and one of the college students led us in a prayer. Finally, we piled into the back of an old F-150 pick up.
We then stopped at three different corners throughout downtown Gainesville and hand out the food that was prepared. Some of the day laborers had different addictions and couldn't hold down real jobs, but most are just regular people who had jobs but were laid off and are now trying to pick themselves back up.
It was an adventure. It's amazing how many small groups of people are doing things like this without any fanfare. People know all about the Red Cross and the Salvation Army, and those are fine organizations, but these small groups are equally amazing and go unnoticed.
When the Web site is developed, I'll post the link. But it will probably won't be anytime soon, since we are working in concert with another online media class and it is they who will publish the material. We are just collecting all th information, editing it and digitizing it. They finish it. So we'll see.