Dear Editor,
This is a letter to the people. What I’ve been doing at the camp for those who have no home is basically quality-of-life improvement, which includes making their voices heard, getting them fresh water, decent food and providing warm clothes and blankets to get through this bleak mid-winter.
Thanks to the city council, the local Salvation Army and a few non-profit churches in town, I’ve been able to provide the campers with all listed above, plus two grills and extension cords for their generators.
There’s still much work to be done, mostly with beds, lights, wagons, bins and baskets for clothing, storage and washing.
I’m working with Mid-Valley Disposal on getting mattresses people don’t need around town delivered to the camp so everyone’s able to sleep more comfortably.
I have ideas in the works about lanterns being set up so there’s light for the people to see past 5 p.m. I’m just trying to coordinate everyone’s individual actions to uplift the people at the camp so the community is more effective at looking out for each other.
I believe the people at the camp all deserve support, a material foundation to build their vision of their own best-life scenario. Most are humans with great hearts and minds that are at a foundational disadvantage. After all, they’re people just like everyone else.
We all have adversities in life, and this is theirs. A small few are suspicious or apprehensive of outside help due to how people project onto them.
For example, they see me as “curious” when I walk in with my “cowboy hat” (in truth, it’s a Buffalo-Soldier hat), but when I open up to ask what they need support with, they trust me enough to tell me. I just do my best in what I can do.
To uplift fallen humanity,
— Aeneas Brown, Los Banos
