Clementine Yost| Contributing Editor
On Tuesday, 2nd December, I went along with the lovely folks at VDP on their weekly ‘Soup
Run.’ I imagine you’ve heard about a soup kitchen. Dublin has a few of those. But this is different. VDP Soup Run means bringing the soup (and other goodies) to the homeless and hungry of Dublin. This is such a brilliant and effective idea. In the case of soup kitchens, they aren’t guaranteed to get to everyone because not everybody will know where the soup kitchen is or that it exists. Rather they bring the soup kitchen to the homeless.
I emailed Kerri on a whim, hoping they’d have a space for me this Tuesday and thank my lucky stars they did. So I went along, hoping I had wrapped up warm enough on this cool December night, to see what VDP Soup Run was all about. I can tell you now that I was indeed not wrapped up enough, but this was good. Had I been cosy and warm in my nice heavy winter clothes I would have missed a key element of what made my experience so powerful. I was freezing my arse off. My nail beds had gone a lovely shade of paisley blue and my nose hurt. Luckily I get to go home to a warm flat on campus at the end of the day, which puts the inconvenience of my Ethernet cable into perspective. People say #FirstWorldProblems, yet these people, living in what is arguably the ‘First World’ are sleeping outside in ratty sleeping bags with no hat and no food. VDP is a God-send.
We all filed into VDP headquarters where a determined little nun divided us into teams directed to target specific areas of Dublin. My group and I headed off to Temple Bar. Two lads carried a meter long plastic trunk full of almost a hundred baggies of two ham sandwiches each, tea, soup, instacoffee, chocolate and bananas. Kerri clutched the thermos to her chest, enjoying its warmth. I felt like a sixth wheel. I really wasn’t doing anything of remotely any use. Then I felt bad for feeling bad. I am not doing this for myself—where the hell did altruism go? Was it ever even here? We stopped at a man on the North side of George’s Quay. He was cold. We offered him tea or coffee, sandwiches, chocolate and fruit. He wanted a coffee. I could see a smile creep onto his face when he was asked if he takes milk or sugar. “A dash of milk and three sugars”. Imagine being on the street in your doorway nook hoping to god you’re not asked to leave this last place you’ve been able to find shelter. Imagine you’re so cold your fingers are permanently bent and that out of nowhere, a cheery blonde girl (Kerri) bounds up and offers you a coffee. To be able to ask for three sugars and a dash of milk is restorative in its own small way. It makes you feel like a human again, or so we were told that night. We left him smiling with his coffee and a stash of ham sandwiches beneath his tattered sleeping bag. It’s the little things.
Everyone was glad to see the VDP trunk of happiness and generosity coming down the way. I finally found a job for myself, doling out chocolates. At first I felt kind of stupid asking a homeless woman, ‘Would you like some chocolates’ since clearly there are more pressing things on her mind than sweets at this moment. Yet, if you think about it, the happiness a bite of chocolate can bring is transportive, momentarily bringing you somewhere that isn’t cold, depressing and grim.
The saddest part of the night was outside the Thai Orchid across from the Westin when we gave soup and sandwiches to lads who couldn’t have been much older than my little brother. One of them said he didn’t need any food because he already had his dinner, which he then clarified was his can of bulmers. His friend later asked us in a whisper if he could get soup for him, explaining he was really just ‘too proud’ to ask for any himself.
I had so many questions that I couldn’t ask them: how old were they? where were their parents? Why wasn’t there some sort of after school program to get kids off the streets? While the young lads having lost their way in this world made me want to cry, the gratitude and kindness of the people we met that evening was equally overwhelming. One man said, ‘you should be recognized by some sort of newspaper for all the good you are doing. The real angels of Dublin.’ This made me nearly cry again, especially as it was only my first night and I don’t feel I deserved to be lumped in with the rest of the VDP heroes as some sort of quasi-praiseworthy gobshite leeching off my compatriots’ heroism. His profuse thanks struck me as so genuine, as he was so honest a source, so unbiased, that his expression of gratitude couldn’t have been influenced by anything other than his delight in VDP’s generosity to ensure he didn’t starve.
If you want to make a difference, either to pat yourself on the back as a charitable shite, or perhaps you genuinely have an urge to help people, as I’d say the majority of VDP do, then join VDP and help them bring Christmas to the people of Dublin’s streets. You can start by giving back in your local community. Just know, that when a homeless person asks you for spare change for a cup of tea, they truly want tea. They are genuinely are so happy when they’re given a cup of tea. Even something so simple as a bar of Tesco value chocolate can bring a smile to the face of someone who hasn’t had the chance to smile very much. That was the something has stuck with me for the rest of the week- Someone living on the streets in the cold of Dublin winter with more misfortunes than I hope I’ll ever know, can find the delight in something so simple as chocolate. This in itself was both the happiest and saddest lesson I learnt that night.
Illustration by Mary Corbally.
