Open Assignment

To be honest, I was not sure where to start for ideas on this assignment. Then, after remembering a friend's suggestion to go feed a homeless person with her, I realized that's what I wanted to do. I asked Taylor to accompany me downtown, where we parked and began our search for a likely candidate to buy lunch for. Originally I thought we would just pick up a $5 footlong from Subway and give it away to someone deserving, but then I realized that may seem shady. Instead we figured we'd find a restaurant somewhere near our person. We parked just off of the circle on Meridian. It took us less than five minutes to find our guy. He was sitting on the Northeast corner of Meridian and Washington St. I walked up to him, said hello, and asked if we could buy him lunch. He seemed surprised, but said sure. There happens to be a Jimmy Johns right there as well as a Qdoba so I asked which he would prefer. He said Qdoba. Then I asked him what he wanted from there and his response was "What do they have?" I know I've seen this guy sitting in the same spot before, maybe even more than once. I recognized him by a little Scooby Doo stuffed animal he had sitting near him. I figured he was familiar with the chain, but he did not know what Qdoba serves...really? I thought that was kind of sad. This either means no one else has ever offered him food from there, he's never eaten there with money he did have, or just forgot maybe? After catching him up on what kind of food they have, he said he would take a beef burrito but no sour cream or lettuce. I asked if he wanted a drink, but said no and pointed to his water bottle. Taylor and I went and ordered his food and took it back to him. Along with the bagged burrito, I handed him $3. He said thank you and smiled. He still seemed as if this might be too good to be true. Finally we asked his name; it was Anthony. We then introduced ourselves. I wanted to get a picture, but mostly felt it was rude and I did not want to ruin the gesture by labeling the fact that we were doing it for a project. We told him to have a nice day and he wished us the same. On the way back to the car, I felt like a million bucks and was hopeful that maybe someone noticed our act enough to pay it forward, or so to speak. I did notice that two women in a white car watched us as we handed Anthony the bag and the cash. It was really rewarding to do something selfless for someone less fortunate than I. I honestly hope it made his day and warmed his heart.