Father's Day Drive-by

With Father’s Day being a meaningful day to both Rob and I, and spending it with our dad’s was not a possibility, we decided to do something meaningful sans fathers anyway. I will spare you the details on how we got to point of our mission, but the mission itself started with two bags full of Taco Bell tacos (both hard and soft), one Civic, and two determined people in search of the homeless.

Did you know that when you actually have warm, tasty tacos in your car awaiting hungry bellies, it’s really hard to find people that look like they might want them? After we drove around for about 20 minutes, we finally stumbled across a man waving at us from the corner. I quickly jumped at our opportunity, rolled down the car window and bashfully asked “Do you like Tacos?” His toothless grin will be forever embedded in my brain as he professed “I LOVE EM!” Finally, our first delivery! After we chatted for a moment with him about his aspiration of owning a taco cart in downtown Charleston, we watched him walk away with a sense of purpose in our hearts.

As we continued on our mission, we made another pass along the place that we had found him, only to find him sharing his new taco treasures with his 2 friends. I was in disbelief! I consider myself a kind hearted person, but I’m not sure that if I was homeless and hungry that I could easily share a free meal with anyone else. You’d probably find me solo, hiding out in an alley somewhere with mild sauce all over my face! Not our new friend, he was sharing his gift. At that I pulled over and Rob jumped out and gave each of them 2 more tacos. We noted that one man carefully placed one of his in his back pocket for safe keeping, which made me laugh (see quote below).

Long story short, after almost 2 hours we successfully found 10 homeless people and were able to give them 2 tacos each. We didn’t get into the whole “hard or soft” choices because then you feel obligated to then ask “mild, hot or fire sauce” and that’s just too many decisions for drive by taco distributing. Simple and genuine is enough I think.

As parting words, I’d like to share a few things that I learned (and one funny quote that arose) on our first “mission” yesterday:
It’s REALLY hard to find homeless people when you’re looking for them.
Hearing Rob tell our friend on the phone “We’re out driving around looking for homeless people to give tacos too” sounds even crazier than you already feel.
You can make 10 people’s bellies fuller with only $16
I’m definitely doing this again. Maybe once a month.
Drive by taco’ing is a great way to spend an afternoon
The homeless are not greedy (which humbled me completely). If you offer them food and they’ve already eaten, they’ll tell you that so that someone else can have their portion.
When you have nothing to your name, you form bonds strong enough to cause you to share when you do stumble across something to fill your bully.
Fun quotes arise such as “Is that a taco in your back pocket or are you just happy to see me?”

And last but not least, when you can’t be with your dad on Father’s Day, doing something in his honor is a close second. Knowing that one of the reasons you’d even think of doing a task like that is because of seeds that he and your mom have planted in you is an even better feeling.

Love you Dad!