The Donut Diaries: A Lesson on Listening

She was short; I was tall. She was pretty; I am definitely not. She was a junior; I was a senior. She had a green dress; I had a black suit. Her name was Chayse; mine was Brendan. It was my senior prom in the spring of 2013. We were accompanied by twenty of our good friends, as we boarded the boat that would take us from Poulsbo to Seattle, Washington. After we arrived, we all enjoyed dinner together at Cutters, in Pike’s Place Market. As dinner came to an end and everyone prepared themselves for a night full of dancing at the Seattle Aquarium, Chayse and I noticed the unreasonable amount of food left on the table. We were not about to let that delicious seafood go to waste.

Our friends stood up; so did we. Our friends went to the aquarium; we did not. They danced; we walked. We walked the streets of Seattle giving every last bit of our leftovers to the people without homes, without food, without proper clothing. We walked, and we walked. Finally, we arrived at a closing bakery, where we asked if they had any free donuts. Much to our surprise, they generously handed us two-dozen of Seattle’s finest donuts. So we continued our walk through the darkening streets of a constantly glowing city, feeding people in need as we wandered in our suits and dresses. What an interesting juxtaposition it must have been to see two well-dressed folks making friends with the homeless. It may not have been a conventional prom night, but conventional nights are nights that will be forgotten with the passing of time; I will never forget my prom night.

The streets of an endless city guided us between towers and through markets as the moonlit sky above provided light. With three donuts left, we stood on the corner of Pike St. and 5th Ave. A man approached us. His arm was in a sling, his back curved and sickly, and his hair dark and dirty; he called himself Ronald. He asked us for money or food, and we offered him a donut, but to his disappointment and ours, he could not eat sugar. As we stood on that vacant street corner in the middle of thriving metropolis, we were confronted by poverty and sickness.

We bought Ronald dinner that night at an IGA across the street. Ronald grew up in a situation much like mine. He was born into a loving family, and attended school regularly. He was not addicted to drugs like most stereotypes eagerly assume of homeless people. Nor was he mentally unstable. Ronald, in fact, kept up with local news stories, and tried his best to interact with society. As Ronald, Chayse, and I left the IGA, he turned right, and we turned left. We will most likely never meet again, but I can only hope that he remembers the night that those two finely dressed youngin’s bought him dinner on Pike and 5th.

I believe in giving people a chance: shirking stereotypes and providing for those who need it most. As the average person walks through a city filled with beggars, they do not pay attention to them. In fact, they usually ignore them completely. But they are people too, regardless of their social status. So maybe next time you find yourself passing a homeless person on the streets, stop and listen. Do not feel obligated to buy them anything or throw your money into that tattered cup that rests at their feet; just listen. Sometimes that is the greatest gift a person can receive, especially when society has bestowed such demeaning stereotypes upon them. This is what I believe. Everyone deserves a chance; so just listen.