Editor:
“Beautiful, isn’t it,” I said as I looked out the window at 8 a.m. on Christmas Day.
“It’s so perfect … quiet, serene.”
My wife was standing behind me and hugged me tighter than she normally does. She never replied. She’d been weeping and found it difficult to talk.
“I can’t help thinking of our homeless folks on this, the most special day of the year,” she said.
Since October, she’s been seeking donations of warm, weather-appropriate jackets, toques, new underwear and socks and good quality used shoes and boots. Other volunteers secured an extreme weather facility where a few of our “down-on-their-luck” neighbours could receive a hot meal and spend the night in a safe and warm church auditorium.
An hour before I looked out the window (7 a.m.), these homeless individuals were asked to leave in blizzard-like conditions because the church had other commitments for the hall.
“You can return at 10 p.m. this evening.”
I’m betting these folk didn’t see the same beauty I did.
As my wife and I contemplated what more we might do as individuals (not much), Good King Wenceslas played in the background. You know the legend … Wenceslas trod through the snow with his page to deliver alms to a peasant who lived in a nearby forest. He saw the need to act and did so.
Wenceslas’ peasant is today’s homeless.
Surely, most of the residents of South Surrey/White Rock would support funding for a 24-hour warming facility (or facilities) where a couple of dozen folks could stay warm and dry during these cruelly cold days.
Sadly, it seems, we have no Wenceslas to lead us.
Jim Young, Surrey