Angus Wilson had worked his way up in the trucking world.<\/p>\n
He drove for 20 years, and was pulling in $80,000 a year as a driver trainer.<\/p>\n
But the wheels, quite literally, came off for Wilson, due to a lapse in judgement.<\/p>\n
He was arrested for drunken driving.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne night turned my life upside down,\u201d Wilson said.<\/p>\n
He lost his job. Eventually, he lost nearly every material possession he had.<\/p>\n
Already going through a divorce at the time of his DUI, he lost his wife and two children, too.<\/p>\n
One Thursday in December, a now-homeless Wilson was queuing up for dinner and a respite from the winter cold. Along with his friend Joey Smith, also homeless, Wilson was getting a hot meal from a group of kindly volunteers in the basement of Kent Unity Church. Bundled up in a heavy coat, Wilson didn\u2019t exude bitterness about his plight so much as hope for a better future.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just want to get back to a place where I can take a shower every day,\u201d he said, noting he sleeps where he can, in spite of the bitter cold.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf I can get back on my feet monetarily, I\u2019m gonna give back. Give back with both these hands,\u201d Wilson added, eyes filling with tears, as the other tables in the basement filled with diners, as homeless as he is.<\/p>\n
For people like Wilson, the Thursday-night dinners at the church, especially in the winter weather, are a godsend.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a place to not only fill the stomach, but a shelter to restore the soul.<\/p>\n
In the time he was there, Wilson had dinner, a chance to catch up with Joey, and some time to interact, one-on-one, with volunteers serving the meal and just hanging out to talk. In one corner, a volunteer had a microphone that she put to use, belting out holiday tunes.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s the kind of environment that organizers of Willow\u2019s Place \u2013 the organization providing the meals and the fellowship \u2013 are striving to give the local homeless.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s becoming a real community,\u201d said Kent businesswoman Sally Goodgion, who with fellow resident Lois Deusen, helped reorganize what previously were Thursday-night, outdoor feeds into something warm and under a roof.<\/p>\n
Inspired by the book \u201cBreakfast at Sal\u2019s,\u201d about Bremerton homeless man Richard LeMieux and his dog, Willow, Goodgion and Deusen named their new, under-a-roof venture Willow\u2019s Place.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe started three months ago, and the first night we had 40 people,\u201d said Goodgion. \u201cNow it\u2019s 60 to 80 people.\u201d<\/p>\n
Goodgion described their diners as not only the homeless, but people couch-surfing (drifting from one friend\u2019s place to another) or others who are just barely making it.<\/p>\n
The stories Goodgion hears are, like Wilson\u2019s, heartbreaking.<\/p>\n
\u201cLast week we had two teenagers, and one of them said his family made him leave because he didn\u2019t have a job,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
There are veterans, too, and sometimes families. There are women as well as men, and some of them have to walk a long way to get to the church. But they do it.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe walks almost a mile and a half, rain or shine,\u201d said volunteer Dee Doxsee, pointing out one woman, seated at a table, who has been a regular to the meals. The woman, Doxsee added, has to walk along a lonely stretch of highway to get to Kent, so she\u2019ll wear a fluorescent vest for added safety.<\/p>\n
Wilson\u2019s friend Joey Smith has been homeless for years, and is a regular to Willow\u2019s Place. He\u2019s seen the good and the bad of living a life without a home.<\/p>\n
The good? Helping friends in need.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019d be surprised how much the homeless help the homeless,\u201d Joey said, seated at the same table as Wilson. \u201cWe feed each other, we share our clothes.\u201d<\/p>\n
The bad? The sheer brutality he\u2019s experienced.<\/p>\n
In September, a group of youths beat Joey with a baseball bat. The beating required many stitches, leaving Joey with a vivid scar on his head.<\/p>\n
\u201cI wasn\u2019t lookin\u2019 and they came from the sides,\u201d Joey said, of the attack that landed him in a hospital.<\/p>\n
In spite of the beating, the Kent man said he\u2019s going to remain homeless. Cold nights are endured with multiple sleeping bags. And, he quips, he likes the outdoors. And he has pets: \u201cI have a raccoon, a possum and a cat.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI keep going because I keep breathing,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Linae Lloyd, the volunteer who was singing holiday tunes that night, was happy to speak about why she wanted to be there.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not a church thing; it\u2019s a love-people thing,\u201d said Lloyd, a pastor herself from a Puyallup-area church.<\/p>\n
\u201cGod\u2019s heart is closer to the homeless,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n
Lloyd, who learned about Willow\u2019s Place after meeting Goodgion when both were getting their hair done, said she was planning to bring her congregation to assist.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe want to make sure they stay warm,\u201d Lloyd said, of the food, and the warm clothing that volunteers also give out during the dinners.<\/p>\n
One person for whom the Thursday dinner was an eye opener was exchange student Binh Vo, from Indonesia. He was among a small squad of teens that night who were serving up dinner, under the watchful eye of organizers.<\/p>\n
This was a side of America that Vo hadn\u2019t seen before.<\/p>\n
\u201cI (thought) almost all American families are very rich,\u201d Vo said, as he prepared to take rolls out of the church oven.<\/p>\n
\u201cI found out there are people who are poor.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Angus Wilson had worked his way up in the trucking world.
\nHe drove for 20 years, and was pulling in $80,000 a year as a driver trainer.
\nBut the wheels, quite literally, came off for Wilson, due to a lapse in judgement.
\nHe was arrested for drunken driving.
\n\u201cOne night turned my life upside down,\u201d Wilson said.
\nHe lost his job. Eventually, he lost nearly every material possession he had.
\nAlready going through a divorce at the time of his DUI, he lost his wife and two children, too.
\nOne Thursday in December, a now-homeless Wilson was queuing up for dinner and a respite from the winter cold. Along with his friend Joey Smith, also homeless, Wilson was getting a hot meal from a group of kindly volunteers in the basement of Kent Unity Church.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":217,"featured_media":22131,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-22130","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22130"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/217"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22130"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22130\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22131"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22130"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22130"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22130"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=22130"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}