The Reason We Keep Going

Clara and Leda prepared and served dinner on Tuesday.

This past week it was our turn to serve dinner to 11-15 people at Home and Hope, which provides temporary shelter to families on the Peninsula. Unlike last spring, demand for shelter services has come back to normal, that is, they are oversubscribed. The temporary drop-off probably was not due to stepped-up immigration enforcement, I suppose, but who knows?

This week's group consisted of three single-mother and one two-parent families. All were polite and hard-working, but I need to say a word about the family with both a mom and a dad.

Overnight duty--sleeping bag and toys, what more do I need?

Dad wakes at 2 a.m. to take a bus to San Francisco (their car is out of commission) for his job, which starts at 4.

The 16-year-old son rides the bus to school. A junior, he takes AP history and English lit and hits the books (sans computer, so it's not just an expression) each night in the dining hall while everyone else has gone to bed. He also looks after his baby sister when his mother needed a break.

Diane and Leda (again) served on Thursday.

Mom rides the van to the Home and Hope office, where she spends the day with her one-year-old daughter. They were the only family that was ready to leave with the van at the scheduled time, 7 a.m. each morning.

This family looks like they are going to make it, and they're one of the reasons we keep going.