Monday, February 04, 2019

Candice Payne Is An Angel

I need a palate cleanser after that last story—and no Hot Men today—and then I came across the story of Candice Payne.

Payne, a local real estate broker in Chicago, like everyone in Chicago, was enduring the unbearable cold last week, but unlike most people, she thought about those stuck in the cold, and decided to do something about it.
“It was 50 below, and I knew they were going to be sleeping on ice and I had to do something.”
And so, Candice Payne contacted the Amber Inn in Chicago and paid for 30 rooms to be available to homeless people left out in the cold. She then took to Instagram and asked for volunteers to help transport the homeless to the hotel and soon she had a fleet of cars and drivers willing to help.

She and the drivers went to a tent city, under the expressway and asked as many people as she could to go with her to the Amber Inn. As the news of her mission broke, more and more people began to donate and Payne was able to not only house over 100 people, but she was able to offer them everything toiletries, food, prenatal vitamins, lotions, deodorants and snacks and made care packages to help make the people feel comfortable. Nearby restaurants donated trays of food and what started out as 30 rooms soon doubled to 60; what started out as a one-night stay, with the homeless staying just until Thursday when the temperatures were expected to rise, turned into several days of warmth and food and kindness.

A lot of folks stepped up, but they might not have done so had it not been for Candice Payne and her idea …
“I am a regular person. It all sounded like a rich person did this, but I’m just a little black girl from the South Side. I thought it was unattainable, but after seeing this and seeing people from all around the world, that just tells me that it’s not that unattainable. We can all do this together.”
And seeing what could be done in a short time has inspired Candice Payne to do more …
“This was a temporary fix, and it has inspired me to come up with more of a permanent solution.”
This is how things change, when people who think they can’t help, or think they don’t know how to help, just step up.

Candice Payne is that kind of person.

8 comments:

  1. Such a wonderful story and so glad for so many
    people who helped.

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  2. Yes! This was all over the news here. Such an awesome lady!

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  3. WHOA! I had not heard about this; what an inspiration she is!

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  4. AWESOME!! What a wonderful palate cleanser.

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  5. This lady deserves to be made an American hero. But it should not be up to individuals to deal with the problems caused by governments, on both sides of the pond, who should be clearing up their own messes. In rich countries NO-ONE should be sleeping on the streets; it is obscene. Even in our tiny town we have 14 rough sleepers, unthinkable ten-twenty years ago. And the way they are treated is heart breaking - drunks urinate on them, steal their bedding....

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  6. PS - I thought this might amuse you. In 1688 the Earl of Clarendon said of the Earl of Tyrconnel;

    “I do assure you truth, even in bare matter of fact, will never be known from my Lord Tyrconnel….It is impossible you can believe, unless you found it as we do here, how wonderfully false he is in almost everything he does. What he desires to be done one day, or avers he has done, he will positively deny another, although witnesses can prove him in the wrong: nay, though sometimes his own hand is shown against him; really his passion and rage (we know not for what) makes him forget what he says and does; and when he is convinced that he is in the wrong he is then in such a fury that the like is not usual.”

    Seems to me that this could just as well apply today to the man-baby who lives in the White House

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  7. That is a heart-warming story indeed!

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