My Red Sweaters and Clothes for the Homeless

A week ago, I got an e-mail news blurb about a local man who used to volnteer giving food at the Cathedral Kitchen in Camden and turned to collecting warm clothes and blankets for the homeless in that city. There is a very large homeless tent encampment there which my sister has seen on her travels to and from Philadelphia, where she works.

There have been many reports and documentaries on the homeless and the apparently nresolvable problem of homelessness in America where there are no more cheap ooarding houses and rents are sky high and affordable housing nonextistent.

Let me digress here and apologize for typos - I can't see very well and have not successfully found the way to enlarge the type on the blog since they changed the software from open source a few years ago. So if there is a typo please forgive and ignore! Thanks!

To get back to homelessness and my red sweaters, I was so moved by the essay about the man, Mr. Piscatelli, colecting and delivering winter things to the homeless that I went into my attic where I still store several tubs of clothes and household goods I don't need but have not to date been able to divest myself of. This time I brought down, at great esxpense of effort maneuvering the tubs down the attic steps with my bad joints and poor eyesight, two tubs of clohtes that survive all the past purges. In them were two of my lifelong favorite red sweaters, a mock turtle neck and a button front cardigan, in just that heather tweedy mix embeded in tomato soup red, of which I am so fond. The sweaters are too small, and despite a few successful attempts at losing weight, I think it is safe to assume that won't happen again in the probable ten yeears I have left on earth to wear winter clothes, so it is time for some cold homeless person to wear those cheery red sweaters. They shouldn't languish in the attic benefiting no one.

Also, it occrred to me before writing this, that I no longer sear sweaters. My lifestyle has changeed and like many of my fellow Americans, I live in sweat suits which are warm, wrinkle free, comfortable in every way, and my sweatshirt tops have hoods which hold down my wiwnter hat when I walk the dog. Also, I can use the same sweatsuits for pajamas as well as for day wear clothing. No need any longer for two sets of clothes! At present I am wearing a cranberry sweat suit with a lighter shade of cranberry cotton long sleeve under shirt. And I am getting on my shoes to walk the dog.

Mr. Piscatelli's number is 609-332-9484 and his helper Ms. Hunter, lives at 413 Cranford Rd., Cherry Hill, NJ. She collects and sorts and then he delivers. They asked for ONLY winter things, and sneakers, socks, underwear, blankets, hats, scarves, gloves - and all of these are in the tubs I am taking over on Monday. I am meeting a friend for lunch at Maritsa in Maple Shade and she has cleaned out her closets and has bags of winter clothes for the homeless as well.

Tomorrow, I will again be attending Meeting at Woodbury Friends. Las week made me very happy. I had forgotten how the combination of spiritual meditation that is silent worship and the redolence of three hundred years of spiritual contemplation embedded in the walks of a sacred pace such as Woodbury Meeting could produce an almost magical sense of peace and light. Because this is the time of COVID, there was a zoom meeting and there was only one other live person at the meeting, but that suited me just fine. The solitude was aiding in my contemplation. It heped reduce distraction.

By the way, in an upcoming blog post I would like to talk about an article I read on congnitive decline with aging and how helpfl meditation is.

Happy Trails - Jo Ann and again, please em-ail and don't bother with comments option

wrightj45@yahoo.com