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Just Reading About this Woman Will Make You a Better Person [1]

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Date: 2022-09-28

The tiny kitchen where Jules prepares meals for her homeless neighbors in the park

Jules (Julie) Stogden is no ordinary do-gooder. She’s the I lived through the Camp Fire in Paradise, California and now I donate all my time to feeding others kind of do-gooder.

According to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), Chico, where Jules lives now, has 1,096 people without homes – up 92% since 2015 (remember, nearby Paradise burned in 2018 making 28,000+ people homeless in 80 minutes). There’s a lot to unpack there but here’s the most important take away: when HUD counts people, it settles for the clearly visible ones. The ones in shelters and on the street. Because of this, they miss about 90 percent of those experiencing homelessness.

No matter, this discussion is about the most destitute of all homelessness, the HUD homeless – the ones on the street.

Jules has a tiny little apartment, made more tiny by storage bins she uses to stockpile food stuffs. Jules makes meals for a homeless camp at the park four blocks away from her home. You read that right! Five days a week, Jules gets busy making dinner for about twenty-five folks sleeping in tents or in the open air.

Wait, it gets better. Jules has no driver’s license and consequently no car. Each day she cooks all the food at her place, loads it into her shopping cart and wheels it down the road to feed the hungry souls who have nothing.

Take a minute – let that sink in. She cooks for 25 people, five days a week, and wheels the food to them in a shopping cart! And not four years ago she lost everything she had in a fire.

But it gets better. Except for a few folks who can give her rides on the weekend – she gets all the food herself. Jules doesn’t have disposable income. She’s just getting by. She goes to food banks and gets what she can – then she turns it into meals for strangers.

A few years ago, Jules never anticipated a retirement spent working full time to feed strangers. It started the day she baked muffins for the folks in the park. “I got the bug. You know, like the gambling bug. But I got the feed the homeless bug.” Even with how hard it is to get enough food some weeks, that bug is not going away.

Here’s where you come in – HELP HER!

What does she need? “Better protein. I think if I just had some eggs, I could make them egg salad. Sometimes around the holidays people give away turkeys – the food I could make with two turkeys!” She smiled and continued, “If I can get the ingredients, I make an unbelievable spaghetti! I cook the sauce all day. Put everything you’d want into it – sausage, peppers, you know?”

Some days it’s peanut butter and jelly or macaroni and cheese, but this Friday she’s planning a feast, “I got extra lucky with food this week. I got six bags of chicken thighs. I’m going to roast them up in the oven with barbeque sauce. I’ll make mashed potatoes with real butter and cream. I’ll make it like I’d make it for the president.”

If you’re ready to help Jules here’s what she needs: Gift cards to Walmart or Costco (she has a friend with a membership. Costco should give her one of her own). She needs paper products and disposable cutlery. She gets good food at the soup kitchens, but she never gets enough. She’s especially fond of the good folks at Faith Lutheran Church – Salvation Army too. So, to help with the food, gift cards to WinCo would be great!

And could a lady get a lift? Or a Lyft – or Uber? Getting back and forth to grocery shop would be a giant help. Oh, and a better cart – one like you’d lug kids in or like this – unless someone’s available to help her deliver the food.

Uber, are you listening?

If you’re on board to help – you can contact my gmail at epicjourney10. Be sure to put her name (Julie Stogden) on the gift cards. I live in Pennsylvania and I won’t be able to physically help. I’ll forward what you send to one of her neighbor who has an email account. Thanks for reading about Jules. Let’s all spend a little bit of today trying to think about others the way she does.

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[1] Url: https://dailykos.com/stories/2022/9/28/2125737/-Just-Reading-About-this-Woman-Will-Make-You-a-Better-Person

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