At my meeting last week we were told that our Eustis area needed support with our homeless population so we thought why not! Our weekend was jam packed so we went out on Sunday to service our homeless community. I hadn’t been out servicing on Sunday before so I didn’t know what to expect. Here in Lake County FL I learned it was pretty quiet out! We drove up to the Eustis area and the streets were quiet, most stores closed I didn’t think we would be successful. The homeless in this area if they aren’t in the woods or tents they find rooms to rent and when their monies run out they either go to the woods or find a spot somewhere they think is safe and sleep. We saw Mister 1 who said he gets his money on the 1st of each month and uses it to get a room but when he runs out of money, back to the pavement he goes. Mister 1 has been homeless for about 1 year he said he traveled here to see his sick mother who is now in the hospital. He is from Ohio and hopes to see her soon but because of covid-19 and his living situation they won’t let him see her. Mister 1 was thankful to accept our donation, 2 bananas (store had no apples :(, gatorade, something warm and $5 for dinner. So we traveled around Eustis which isn’t a large city so we decided to head down to Leesburg. Again, Sundays are pretty chill which was nice to see so before we decided to head to Orlando we saw Mister 2 carrying a piece of cardboard to a building to make shelter for himself since it had been raining on and off. We made a u-turn and went to chat with him. We startled him upon approaching, he started collecting his items to take flight. I yelled no, no no, don’t leave we are here to help you. We explain who we are and what we do and he is relieved to hear and opens up and explains that he has been homeless for 11 years, Mister 2 suffers from mental illness he says he was diagnosed with schizophrenia, which is an illness so near and dear to my heart since my grammie suffered from schizophrenia:( Mister 2 said he gets agitated in shelters so he prefers his living conditions. He elaborated to say that the shelters make him feel like he’s in jail. He lived with his family as long as he could but the older he got the more his symptoms progressed and the less tolerable his family were to put up him not taking medication. Mister 2 doesn’t like the way the medication makes him feel so he doesn’t take it. We talked to him for a good while, gave him his care package and wished him well. It was a task to service on Sunday but nonetheless we were successful and that’s what we enjoy being able to do make someone’s day a little brighter and we did just that!
MISTER 1
MISTER 2
