Feeding homeless and needy people of Odessa
Homeless people, as we know, are the most socially vulnerable category of citizens... Often, they ended up on the street due to unfavorable circumstances. They have nowhere to turn for help, nobody needs them, they often suffer violence.
For over 4 years, the youth club "Orthodox Generation" and its leader Tamerlan Bannura have been helping the homeless of our city. Every Saturday and Sunday at 1:00 PM, regardless of weather and season, feeding is organized at Railway Square with lunch (first course, main course, tea), and first aid is provided, clothes are distributed. Many people were helped to return home, saved from Gypsy slavery, found relatives, helped find work... Each person has their own story. There are, of course, chronic vagrants or alcoholics, but most who come to feeding are simply people living below the poverty line or who ended up on the street for various reasons. Odessa is a huge city, many come looking for work, get into trouble and then can't go home. Sometimes Tamerlan sends up to 10 people home per week!
Now, during crisis and rising food prices, destitute people especially need help! They are really STARVING!
150-200 people come to each feeding. Volunteers bring food, cooking first and main courses at home, buying bread and other products. Ilyinsky and Panteleimonovsky monasteries also help. Food distribution begins with prayer. We try to feed everyone who comes! Sometimes there's lots of food - it's a real celebration! But sometimes there aren't enough products or hands.
So we ask all caring people to respond and help however they can - with products, money, medicine, and we also need volunteer helpers.
Donated money will buy disposable dishes for feeding and necessary medications. With very limited funds, we have to buy cheap disposable dishes, but if more people support the project, it can become more ecological.
Skeptics might say you can't feed all the hungry and homeless should earn themselves. This is said by those who never starved or were on the street. "The well-fed don't understand the hungry". And "don't swear off poverty or prison" - anyone can be in their place...
Some people just need small help and everything normalizes in their lives. There were many such stories when people who came to feeding later found work, got settled - and gratefully came to help themselves, donated money, because they understood how important and necessary it is.
"Anyone who feeds a homeless person is like feeding themselves" - Saint John Chrysostom once said. And this is truly so.
