Chili Outreach – Verizon Wireless

Each year at SafeHouse we have our annual Chili Outreach. The event has been going on in Atlanta for several years and continues to grow from year to year. In spite of several challenges, including rain, we had an amazing event. We were fortunate enough to have nine tents donated at the last minute that we used to develop a rain contingency plan.

About 700 homeless guests and 650 volunteers came out in the rain. For this year’s event we had the mobile medical unit doing health screenings and minor triage, hair cuts, live music from One Atlanta, winter wear, foot care, paper work assistance, chili for everyone, and a call home station that was sponsored by Verizon Wireless. Guests were able to access each of the stations and get the services they need. So many awesome stories emerged from this day of service. One story in particular I wanted to highlight…

One of the many who used the phones was a young man who had not spoken to his mother for quite a long time. He made contact with her using our Verizon Wireless Call Home station. They spent over 45 minutes on the phone. When the conversation was over, he hung up the phone, and with a huge ear to ear grin handed it to one of the women working this station, gave her a big bear hug then proceeded to walk to the corner of Ellis Street and Courtland Street and hop in the car with his mother! Without the phones there would have been no calls. Without this call this family would still be fragmented. Thanks to the collaborative efforts of Verizon wireless and SafeHouse Outreach this young man has been reunited with his family and is now off the streets!

Verizon wireless was only doing what they do naturally, providing phones and phone services to customers. This time they took what they do naturally and used it to impact someone’s life. More and more companies are starting to follow this trend. They are taking what they do naturally and finding ways to invest it into a worthy cause.

Thank you to Verizon for teaching me more about living love. I am thinking about more ways that I can involve what I and others do naturally in worthy causes.

What do you do? How can you use it live love?