So at Via Christus this past week we ran a food drive for our county's food pantry. We advertised our plans and last weekend dropped off nearly 1500 grocery bags with notes explaining the food drive on them. People who were interested could fill the bag with food items and leave it on their doorstep by 10AM Saturday. The note also asked anyone who was interested in helping collect the bags to please contact the church. We had a couple of Mormon missionaries volunteer to help and a father called and said he would like to help with his son so he could teach his son about community service. Many hands make light work, so we were grateful for the interest.

On Saturday we set out in about a dozen groups to collect the bags. We had to drive slowly through the neighborhoods with our hazards on looking at porchs to see if people had left out a bag with our bright neon sign on it. If we saw a bag we would jump out to get it. We all looked a bit strange doing this, but we had advertised it, and there were a bunch of us out doing it. Even so one of the groups, and only one, were stopped and questioned by the police. It was the father/son group - the father and son who also happened to be African-American. The father who had brought his son to help teach him about community service and instead had to talk to him about why they out of all the groups were stopped by the police. I don't know if the police were doing racial profiling (consciously or unconsciously), but its just very very interesting.

I don't know if we will ever see this man and his son again. They volunteered to help us help the needy in our area and I am so sad they they had this negative experience because of their offer to help.

Labels: Culture, Social Justice