Summertime. Hot days. Warm nights. Cool breezes. Flowers. Garden vegetables. Strawberries, raspberries, plums and nectarines. Butterflies, hummingbirds, baby bunnies and singing frogs.
I love the summertime. I watch my garden grow. I wonder if it will be a good tomato year, if the corn will be knee high by the Fourth of July, and if I will have enough time to weed my garden.
I sing at several festivals, farmers markets and concerts. I worry over the hay crop, and wonder how to keep my youngest daughter occupied while I am at work.

I have multiple sclerosis so when it is exceptionally hot, I don't go outside. At other times I wear an ice bandana and ice vest so that I keep my brain and body cooled down. My friend Joe Rolland, who also has MS, bought them for me because he knows I spend my days working as an organic farmer at Hedgebrook Farm on Whidbey Island, a beautiful retreat center for woman authors. I always have water to drink and a place to escape to if I am too uncomfortable.

Being homeless during the winter is dangerous and freezing cold. Your clothes, shoes and socks never dry out. You develop immersion foot, chilblains and frostbite. When you are sick you huddle into someone's throw-away blanket in an alleyway or park, before you are told you have to move on by the local police. You are worried that your sleeping bag, one of your only lifesaving pieces of equipment will be stolen from you. Doesn't sound like a whole lot of fun, does it?

What is it like in the summertime? Ninety-degree weather with no water fountains, no shade and no place to escape from the beating-down sun or continuing rain. Winter clothes are discarded because after a while carrying around everything you own on your back becomes too fatiguing. You try to keep some warm clothes because the Northwest climate is so unpredictable. Whatever you do you try to hang on to your sleeping bag even though it needs laundering. The smells of homelessness permeate city streets during the heat waves of summertime. For some summer means baseball, swimming, summer camp and vacations. For the homeless it means dehydration, mindless backbreaking starvation wage labor for many, and
horrendous sanitary conditions.

The truth is, summer is three of the hardest months for the homeless and for programs like
OPERATION: Sack Lunch. During the fall and winter, many people have the spirit of giving to those who are underprivileged. The holidays bring a sense of compassion and caring that seem to fade away as the kinder weather approaches. In the summertime, more people access our meal lines. Migrant workers, transients, children, teenagers, woman and men who are physically unable to get around in the winter. Our need increases as our resources decrease.

This is a plea to remember that programs like OSL and the people we serve, are desperate for your help every single month throughout the year. We need your financial support, your time, and your talents to provide the consistent level of nutritional support the homeless who congregate in the city of Seattle have come to expect from us over the past nine years. In September, OSL enters into its tenth year of service to the needy of our greater community. Please join us in our endeavor to end homelessness, hunger, and hatred. It can only be done with your involvement.

Your tax deductible donation can be sent to : OSL
          PO Box 1231
           Clinton, WA  98236
We can be reached at (360) 341-1309
Email; beverly@opsacklunch.org
FAX: (360) 341-1326
www.opsacklunch.org