New Restaurant Idea for the Disenfranchised and Homeless of
Philadelphia, and the REST of us.....
Anonymous...
It is an idea whose time has come. It was done, I believe,
in other cities like Baltimore, and it has been successful. I'm talking about a
full-service restaurant with all the bells and whistles and all the greatest
food--disregarding pork and beef because they are dangerous to human health--a
full-service restaurant that will provide food for disenfranchised and Poor
People at a cost of whatever they can
afford—including a nickel or a dime or a penny if that is all they have, or
even nothing. If they want to volunteer sometime in the kitchen they can be
trained to do so, if they have such abilities or potential abilities. They
should NOT be excluded from having a meal if they have no such stability and
talents.
My vision, and I have written about this several times
before, is to have good, wholesome, inexpensive food that feeds into our
tendency to be healthy available for human consumption available to the masses
regardless of their ability to pay. Food that can give the human body strength,
stamina, an ability to do for themselves--as the Black Muslims say--and feed
into the human brain and the human mind in a Way that will help all those
attending move into a New Day and look at their New Day with a Positive Spirit
and a positive attitude that we as Black People and the left out can achieve
anything we want to if we set our minds to it and are willing to work. This Homeless Restaurant can be called the
Wooden Fork, or whatever the People decide it should be called. Other
restaurants in the City of Philadelphia can feed into this main large
restaurant, that will have modern cooking facilities, an earthly, ego-friendly
environment with plenty of fresh and healthy plants and a nice garden.
I'm talking about fresh organic fruits and fresh organic
vegetables, fresh farm-raised chicken and fresh fish that is cooked to
perfection--tasty, well-spiced, and scrumptious. We are bringing together the
different aspects of the Progressive forces and progressive restaurants in
Philadelphia to make this a reality for the entire city. We will be
under-written by people who have a little more money and an ability to pay,
paying a little more for their meal than the rest of us, who might not be able
to pay at all. We will also be getting grants and money from other generous
private sources such as The Ford Foundation; The Paul Newman Foundation; The
Paul Wellstone Foundation; The Robert F. Kennedy Foundation; The Enough
Project; The Russell Simmons Foundation; Colin Powell's His Wife's Foundation; The Danny Glover
Foundation; The Michael Jordan Foundation; The Tyler Perry Foundation; The Will
Smith and Jada Pinket-Smith Foundation; Charles Barkley's Foundation; Oprah
Winfrey's Foundation; Oprah Angel's Network; Several Black Banks; and The Black
Millionaire's Network. These organizations will be contacted to enlist their
on-going support. We will also contact people in public office to ask if they
can refer us to people with funds and money to make this a reality and not just
a dream in a few People's minds.
Why are we doing this? First of all, we have to admit that
it is NOT a new concept. Most of us Ole Heads remember the gracious and
generous Father Devine and His wife and His places to eat--and Hotels--that
provided a delicious dinner for 25 cents back in the early 1960's. He was a
Black religious leader who cared about people who didn't have much, which isn't
very popular right now. We now, on July 26th, 2014, Saturday, live in a world
and a city that is full of citizens who are focused on their own issues and
their own finances even as the world economy continues to recover. We should
always have room in our hearts for others, because one day, we may need someone
else to have room in their heart for us.
Another reason we are doing this is because disenfranchised
people and even Black people of means are treated like the last post on the
totem pole--not given respect, honor, or the slightest of kindnesses when the
Bible tells us we as Christians should be treating all People with much
kindness. We read all the deep religious books, but don't really take their
messages to heart. If we read what Jesus said, there would be no Way we could
treat each other with such disgrace, and disrespect. But we do it all the time.
We must NOT do that any longer. I am
constantly amazed at How I as a Black man can walk down the street and openly
speak and say hello to White men and White women and they won't have a word to
say. Now, if you look at it politically, they have their economic foot on our
necks as Black people--because they own a large percentage of the stores, the
hotels, the factories, the chemical facilities, and other means of production
and then they can't even speak and say hello while we as Black People are left
out of the advancement process and not given the jobs and ownership of
businesses and access to Capital we need and must have to stabilize our
community and raise our children properly? This is an outrage and must be
turned around. Not only not speaking to
People but not sharing. We have to find an end to foreclosure and bankruptcy
and eviction, crime, greed, inhumanity and so forth. Something is very wrong
with this picture, but it can be changed. . . I don't have to go back 230 years
and talk about slavery, I don't have to talk about the racism and hatred of Jim
Crow in the ole South or How many Black people were killed during the Civil
Rights era, I can look at what is happening right now. The continued
discrimination. The continuing inability to achieve in schools that have curriculums
that are irrelevant to us as Black People. The continuing inability of our
Black community to fess up to our addictions and begin a willing healing
process. The continuing inability of so many Black leaders to lead in the
correct and positive directions that truly lead to achievement, accomplishment,
honor, dignity, Grace, our youth's Grace and Honor, and our ability to make the
money we need to sustain ourselves. Yes, I'm talking about Cold Hard Cash
people. But I'm also talking taking proper responsibility for ourselves and our
actions.
Just today I went to the grocery store and was totally
embarrassed at the checkout line when instead of a full cart of groceries I had
to buy instead, laundry detergent and some magnesium pills that help build
strong bones and teeth. I had planned to make a Big Pot of chili for
myself--full of string beans, red beans, black beans, onions, squash,
scullions, tomato sauce, low sodium vegetable broth, garlic, spices like curry
powder, cumin, and tamarack--that would have lasted the whole week. But now I
guess I'll be forced to go back to the Church Missions for meals again after
next week because there just isn't any money to buy the proper food I need.
After having to pay my bank--PNC Bank-- $700.00 in bank fees, how could there
be enough money to live off of? If you think I'm not sick of it--with having
such fine-tuned, great writing skills and a host of other skills and yet I
can't--at 57--find a job--even though I apply for them each and every week and
have years of experience in the writing profession--yes I'm tired of the whole
situation. Still I go on, and I don't want to digress. This is part of the
whole reason for the restaurant--to treat people who have had it up to here
concerning systemic and on-going unemployment , foreclosure and other hardships
with some LOVe, respect, Honor and decency--not cast them aside like
yesterday's ole worn out shoes.
So now you see why I do my work and advocate for the
disenfranchised and Homeless of ALL races--especially Black People, and will
continue to do so. This letter will have to sit here for a few days and I will
have to take some of the heat out of it, but not the steam. I ask you for help
in directly communicating to Black Sisters and Brothers who can help this
restaurant become a reality.
This restaurant will also borrow from a few other
restaurants in Philadelphia to take food that is not moldy or going bad, but
food that is fresh, but left over. I want to make it a city-wide project that
brings about a whole new Way of treating disenfranchised people and realizing:
``there but for the Grace of GOD go I.''
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