Spare Change News

Today I actually planned to join a community service day. I bought food stuffs from the mart and went to the place an hour earlier. Handing them over the donations, they said I have to come back an hour later. It seemed they may have too many volunteers etc. I figured I just go to a nearby cafe to spend that hour reading books. I realized there were more volunteers waiting at the cafe too. Mostly students that need to clock in community service hours.

Thus I decided to read my book instead. Maybe it would have been better to join other volunteer programs that was not so mass scale and thus help will be more needed.

I spent my afternoon sitting at 3 different cafes/bookshops around the area reading my book as I wanted to eat dinner at the last cafe. Needed a change of place to eat than in the hotel room. :)

As I was walking a lot in the same area, I passed this man a few times on the street, selling newspaper. I saw him 2 days ago too selling newspaper when I went to recee the area. It was so cold and yet he was still walking outside for hours asking every passer-by whether they want to buy the papers. I did not see anyone buy from him yet.

On my third time passing him today, I figured I should buy from him. The paper costs $1. It is a small edition, with less than 20 pages and is called "Spare Change News". I have yet to encounter this paper on my few times to Boston. Reading it, it is actually a paper by the homeless. People selling it are homeless and it is meant to provide some income for them. Many of the articles are written by people living in shelters and give their thoughts on life. Is quite a good idea that they are doing this to have gainful employment.

I am not sure how many papers the man managed to sell in one day. But I know he is hardworking and doing what he can to survive.