February Giveaway Recap!!!!

It was a wonderful day today; much thanks to over 25 volunteers to that came out to make it work!! About 160 people went through our line to obtain deodorant, coffee, gloves, socks and so much more. There were quite a few interesting characters that came up to the table this time around.

As the season turns to a holiday steeped in pink and red, we had some goodies on the table that folks could partake in. We still had feminine hygiene products left over from January, thanks to Support the Girls - Austin, so we were good to go on that front.

The weather, although getting warmer during the day, is still quite cold at night. That said, much thanks to people that donated gloves, blankets and socks for this giveaway. In addition, coffee was very much in play for recipients. In addition to clothes brought by so many of the volunteers, we have a large bag of clothes from Airman's Attic on Lackland Air Force Base.

A gentleman with the cutest dog wrapped up tightly in blankets received dog food and a hat from one of our volunteers.

We had a person approach the group after we were done saying things like "atheism is a lie" and "hell is real". Several of us spoke to him, but he was not really for listening to another perspective, rather than simply parroting his own. Once the conversation arrived at "I've never seen a man-fish", it kind of went downhill from there. He also said he couldn't understand why we were out here helping since "Darwin said survival of the fittest".

What I explained was that we all live together in this society, and there's no help coming, that we know of, to fix the problems we see around us except what we come together to solve. The small impact that we have on people's lives every month matters. It matters to us Austin AHH volunteers, it matters to our friends and neighbors that receive items in our line, and it matters to making our world that we all share together just a little bit brighter. There is no deity required to care about others. We are all in this together; it's what we do.

That said, we'll see you the 1st Sunday of March, the 4th @ 9:15am. We'll be updating the Amazon wishlist, http://a.co/7gs7evW, and website, austinahh.org, soon once we inventory the items remaining.