WiHood 2013: Last Day in NYC (Soup Kitchen in the Rockaways)

Boom, we're live now. This is a tribute to Ackley, so go ahead, show them what you learned. All right, that's good enough.

Yeah, yeah, it's in the house.

All right, so today was cold. It was really cold. Today was our last full day in New York.

Uh-huh. Okay.

Right. Uh, our last dinner in New York. And then, uh, well, the week went fast.

Yeah, it did.

Way too fast. Yeah. But we had a lot of good memories.

Yeah.

And a lot of good experiences. So just to recap, in the last hour I was on the phone with Vance and I told you girls who came in earlier, he thanked all of you for the wonderful memories and impressions he had spending time with all of you. He was really impressed that we traveled all these thousands and thousands of miles to meet up with these, what he said, these weirdos, a bunch of weirdos, all of us, but we're professionals. And they said they got more out of it than you guys. I mean, they were very moved meeting all of you. And we both were very— almost crying, both of us, because I felt like I couldn't thank him enough, and he felt like he couldn't thank us enough. And they were disappointed they couldn't meet us tonight because of the New York City Police requiring a license, and they would probably arrest us. The industry completely. And as I said, that he had a physicist ready for a presentation. So we're going to get a presentation by a physicist on how the cosmos and the planets and the universe play a role in why we— what we should do with our lives, to do more with our lives. Now this guy has a PhD, and then he had another PhD in some other thing who's going to do a presentation as well. And he's on Dowsing? And they're all three on Dowsing, yeah. Two guys with PhDs. And they all have already their paperwork and everything to present to us. It's beautiful. So they understood and they didn't want to risk you guys getting in trouble. But they understood, so they weren't upset at all. And then today we went all the way out to the Rockaways after I got us lost a little bit. Sorry, took the wrong train. It was different, wasn't that soup kitchen different?

Yeah.

But that's a normal soup kitchen. You're outside in the cold. And we got there, what, 10, right?

Yeah.

That was from 10 to 4. That was 6 hours in the cold. That was cold.

That was really cold.

That was really cold. But it didn't feel like 6 hours, did it though?

No.

Why not? Why did it feel like 6 hours in the plus 2 Celsius?

Because we were doing something all the time. People and— yeah.

Who'd you guys meet today? Anybody?

Oh my gosh, we met this woman. She lost everything in the storm, or yeah, storm, right? Sandy. And her husband and children. Yeah, and they were in the house when the storm hit, and she could like, she could see the water coming in, and she wasn't that tall. She was smaller than me, but, and the water was like up in here.

So she, while she was standing in her house.

Yeah. And the furniture was like moving, uh, floating.

Yeah, yeah. So she cried when she told us, and it was like, ah, it was— yeah, well, she didn't like cry. She didn't want to.

She got tears in her eyes.

Yeah, her eyes were like full of water, and she said that Um, the ocean was like— she could see the ocean from her house, and it was like the ocean just came in really quickly and then it just went out. Yeah, all the furniture just went, uh, and blocked the door. Yeah, so they had— but she said that they had to stock everything up like higher up in the house, but usually when water comes, it only reaches them on their leg, but now it went straight up to her chest.

Yeah. And there was, there was no warning. It just—

no warning whatsoever.

Because yeah, she lived there for 30 years and nothing like that had ever happened before, so they were not prepared at all.

No warning?

No, it just came and hit them, she said. Yeah, but she had a cousin that lived nearby the kitchen.

So they stayed there for like 4 months, but she said it wasn't easy because, you know, you always have to, uh, to—

you're always the guest.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah. Was she able to move? Has she moved in now?

Yeah, yeah, recently.

Back to her home?

No. Yeah, she said so.

Was it the—

yeah, recently.

But they had no furniture, just the bed, I think.

Yeah, they would live back in their own mattress.

Yeah, and that's the most important thing.

After 4 months of living someplace else, imagine Vance and Derek and Deborah, the feeling they would have if they ever returned to their home. They wouldn't need a bed. Right? And that Vance has been on Domusol for 10 years. Can you imagine? Can you know, you guys, you guys know Vance now. Can you imagine how Vance would feel if he ever had a chance to return back home? Can you imagine what that feeling would be like for him? I have a home.

I wonder what he thinks of when he hears here.

So, uh, we're home.

Because when someone says home, I just think of my home. Yeah. And my family and stuff. I wonder what he thinks about home. Yeah, home.

I can tell you what the way he's thinking, thinking about it, and that what he says, we were so blessed to meet all of you, and we just want all you to get home safely. That's how he thinks about us. He doesn't think about comparing, he's thinking about your safety, your welfare. That's the Andong Musal we met. Amazing people. I think we're very lucky. And you guys gave away some of those bags. That was really cool. I told Vance, and I told Vance that, you know, you got the I Love New York bags at the Rockaway Soup Kitchen. I said, on the way home, they gave away a few to some Unduma Sal people. And he paused. And then he was all choked up in his voice. And he goes, that's the young people I know. That was really cool. Vance gets it. Were there any other people, any other stories you remember for today?

Remember that little girl that I met?

Oh, she was so cute. She was so cute.

She was so shy and she was really afraid of people, I think. She was like, she didn't want— she looked at everyone, but she looked so scared.

Yeah, but she didn't look everyone in the eye. She was like looking past them, I think. And she was really scared.

Yeah, she was so beautiful. Her eyes are like the most beautiful eyes I've ever seen in my entire life. Yeah, but we started this, um, we just started, you know, pointing out colors with her. We just went to her and we were like, oh look, pink! And I was like, oh, I love pink! And then we started doing all the colors. And then the other students from Savannah University, they had been—

Savannah State. Yeah, whatever.

They had been there for a week and they said, "Wow, she's talking to them. She hasn't talked before." Really? Yeah, we made a progress. Woohoo! Accomplishment. But she said, she was like, "This is red. This is black." I was like, "Yeah, wow!

It's red!" The people from Savannah State were like us. Yeah, they're here to help. They gave up their spring break to come to New York. Nice people, weren't they?

Yeah, they're nice.

Yeah, um, there were 16 of them.

Yeah, I remember, um, the guy who was standing at the gate here. Yeah, remember what he did?

Yeah, when the guy came.

Yeah. There was a guy, no, not a guy, an old man. He just passed by and he was just looking like he was quite shocked.

Yeah, he wanted to go in.

Yeah, but he didn't know if he was welcome. Yeah, but that guy on the gate from Svan Estate, he said, "I know you want to come in, come in, come in," you know, like in a really friendly way. And he was like, "Really? I can?" And he was like, "Yeah, sure, just come in." And then he came, he was so happy and he was so nice to everyone. He looked everyone in the eyes and he was like— they all gave us blessings all the time. Like, "God bless you, God bless you." That means a lot. It does.

Again, why are the people who have nothing the most appreciative? The people who don't have food for their families the most loving? Do we have to lose everything Do you remember who we are?

I saw one lady, she had two small kids and she was pregnant, I guess like around 6 or 7 months pregnant, and she was carrying this huge bag with food that she got from the soup kitchen and she was carrying it on her shoulder and it was so sad to see, you know, that she had two small kids and when she was pregnant and she had to carry so much weight. And like, it's really unfair actually that she can't have like a nice time while she's pregnant.

I think she was very happy because she finally had food to feed her kid and feed her unborn child.

She was even— she started collecting, uh, like, uh, what do you call them?

Tissues.

Yeah, wet tissues.

Oh, wet tissues.

Yeah, yeah, she started— he started collecting that already, you know. She was like, my baby is coming. That's what she said.

I remember there was a woman who, uh, she came back 3 times.

Yeah.

And, uh, The girls were, you know, there was people from Life something, City Life or something. And it doesn't matter where they were from, but it was a dilemma. She was about to come back again and they were saying, we're going to stop her this time, right? She can't come back a fourth time. And I just said, listen, I get it. Nobody should come back 4 times a day. That's a lot of food. I said, but what if she has like 8 or 9 people living in her one apartment? One of those brown boxes, that's not enough food for 8 or 9 adults or 4 adults, 4 hungry kids. And I go, what do we do? I still don't know what the answer to that question is. What do you do? Do you stand by your principles and morals of the thing? No, only one box per person. But then do you give somebody excess? But then you don't know if they're abusing it or not. You want to feed them.

Yeah.

And some people were there saying, I'm here to pick up because this person can't leave the apartment. And so you gave them two extra, two boxes. What do you do? And we all looked at each other. So she came in again one day, everybody just gave her more. You'd rather overfeed than stand by morals and somebody starve. It's a life lesson that you don't get in school.

And we also gave clothes and shoes. Remember that guy who came in and we found like the best jacket for him?

Yeah, that was amazing.

That was like jackpot.

Did you guys see that when that happened?

That was like the most amazing moment.

Something happened in that moment because I was talking to somebody and we both turned around And because I think that guy's smile lit up the whole place. Because I turned and I saw that guy, and I saw him look at the jacket after you gave it to him, like, what's going on?

And he said, I think it's too small, he said.

Yeah.

And then he tried it on.

But after he tried it on, he tried it on with like, dig, like he had this pride. And he went like that. Oh yeah, he looked good.

He did.

I mean, he went in there with a sweatshirt and came out looking great.

First he didn't want to. Try it on. But then we saw that the brand was Ralph Lauren.

No way!

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Oh yeah, it's Ralph Lauren! He was like, really? He's like, I think it's too small. We're like, just try. And then, wow, it fit him like perfectly. Yeah, so everyone cheered for him. Yeah, right away.

It was awesome. Yeah, that was— you didn't— he didn't need food. That boy was happy. I mean, that gave him a lot.

Yeah. Oh, remember that lady who, with the red lipstick, who was standing at the gate for like an hour?

Yeah, and she talked like really loud.

Yeah, but she was super funny.

You know, one thing I really appreciated was that me and the boys, we were resupplying the table, right? And doing that for whatever, 5, 6 hours. And I felt like, okay, it's just a resupply job. We don't have a chance to see people in the eye and talk to them and stuff. But one thing I got out of it, I was so— I felt so much warmth and love from the people who were actually doing that at the table. They were always saying thank you, right? For 6 hours, they thanked us every time we put a can down. How many hundreds of cans did we put down? Right? That's a lot of food. A lot of food. And we're getting dirty and that stuff was wet and disgusting. You know, and all the time, thank you, thank you, would you mind please getting this? We're one more family, bunch of people who've never been together. People from Savannah, Georgia, Jesus Christ, and Norwegians. Now I thought that was an interesting dynamic.

At first, you know, in the beginning we saw like two groups, but then like in one second everyone's—

Boom, all together, as soon as they opened the gate. Yeah, I thought it was wonderful, the whole thing. You know, restocking job is not the prettiest job, but I didn't mind. It was fun. It was cool to see all the food. Yeah, and it was being used and people appreciated it. Old people who needed help, the guys and even the women were picking up and taking it to their car.

Even the candy, they were like so glad when we said that, yeah, this is candy. And they were like, oh my gosh, candy!

You have this gift, but we were handing out gift bags with dry fruit and candies. And, um, yeah, it was an Indian man who came in and he was like, ah, dry fruit! And I was like, yeah, dry fruit, okay, bye. Because he knew that I was Indian too.

I don't know, as much food that went out of that place, and that was a lot of food. Remember how stocked it was in the back? And then we were done, all those tarps were on the floor. We moved tons of food. I never sensed that anybody would throw anything away. I mean, I was sort of looking for that feeling. Were these people really appreciated? You know, what's going on? Where's all this food going? That food was going to people. And then, you know, in the back, when we went all the way in the back, there was a fence or something.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

There was a house, well, there was the height of the sidewalk dropped and it was these two women. They had opened up the brown boxes and I was like, no, they're not throwing the food away. They were redistributing. She was going, what does your family need? Oh, well, we like this or that. What is your family? And they were exchanging stuff. And it was so sweet. Instead of taking stuff that you don't need, she asked her friend. What do you need from what I have? Or what do you need from what I have? It was amazing. Nothing went to waste in that place. Even the MREs from the US military. You know, there were people carrying those things.

The bags.

The bags, the plastic bags. People, one guy said, he said he had a couple of boxes in his house. He says nothing goes to waste. Because 24 hours a day you need food, just pour out water. A full meal. Imagine that. I thought it was, it was very different, and I was hoping we would get a very different soup kitchen because that's a normal soup kitchen. The one in St. Bartholomew's, heated inside, you get an apron, gloves, and a hat. Yeah, but Rockaways, that's a hurricane territory. That's That's a real soup kitchen. That's— we're just doing this to help people. And I don't know if I told you guys, they have one month left on their contract.

Yeah, till April.

Till April. We're from FEMA, and after that FEMA doesn't have to renew whether or not they're gonna give them all that food.

But they still need a lot.

Yeah, they do.

And the woman who's running that place just got electricity turned on one week ago after 5 months.

Wow, he gave me a really good lecture about not carrying any bad stuff in your heart, or like, um, like carrying— what do you call it— a bad log in your tumbler.

Hatred, or—

yeah, hatred. Because, you know, it's too heavy to carry that. Because if, like, if you want to climb over a mountain You will reach the top faster if you don't carry any luggage or anything on your back. Yeah, so if you like want to succeed in life