Hero of the Week: How One Woman Is Changing the Lives of People Experiencing Homelessness
Winter is fast approaching and while a lot of us are fortunate enough to turn up our thermostats during a
Winter is fast approaching and while a lot of united states are fortunate enough to turn upward our thermostats during a cold snap, for people experiencing homelessness, information technology'southward exceptionally challenging to stay warm, permit alone survive.
Photograph Courtesy of Instagram.com/KnockKnockGiveASock
Adina Lichtman was a sophomore in college, handing out sandwiches to people in need when a man named Diego thanked her for the nutrient.
"He said 'Ma'am, it's then squeamish that you're giving out sandwiches but one thing nosotros could really actually employ are a pair of socks,'" remembered the 26-year-sometime, New Jersey native.
And fifty-fifty more and so in the colder months.It hadn't dawned on her until then, only she knew she wanted to brand a difference in these people'south lives.
She ran upwards to her dorm room only to realize none of her socks would fit her new friend Diego, so she went knocking at every door on her floor and was able to collect over 40 pairs, in less than 15 minutes.
Lichtman was a sophomore at New York University when she founded Knock Knock Requite A Sock (KKGS), a not-profit organisation that collects socks for those experiencing homelessness.
It turns out they are the about needed, just least donated article of clothing.
Lichtman's initiative gained momentum and past the time she was in her senior year, KKGS was operating across xx college campuses and had nerveless and distributed over l,000 pairs of socks. While she was proud of her achievements, she began questioning her mission and its impact on society.
Her initial goal was to provide socks for the homeless, simply she speedily realized that more that, she wanted to create lasting change, on a deeper level, past breaking the stigma that surrounds homelessness.
Against her university'southward advice at the fourth dimension, Lichtman decided to rent a room on campus to gather l students and fifty people living in local shelters, to have dinner next.
"The ane dominion we had was that you were only allowed to sit next to someone yous've never spoken to," she said. The results were centre-opening.
"College students were coming up to me maxim, 'Adina, we can't tell who's homeless and who's not," Lichtman recalled.
"They were meeting moms who had three kids, and couldn't afford child intendance, they were meeting dads who were working minimum wage jobs, only that's not going to get you out of the shelter system, they were meeting people coming out of prison who couldn't go jobs."
At the terminate of the nighttime, people were exchanging phone numbers. What she was witnessing was ii very discrete communities, really getting to know each other. It was a sight to behold.
In that moment, Lichtman not only felt great pride, merely she was likewise incredibly empowered and something told her, she'd discovered her life purpose.
Capitalizing on the success of her dinners at the college level, she decided it was time to bring the experience to the corporate space.
"It needs to be brought to people in power," she thought. "It's not going deport weight if nosotros don't bring it to corporate America."
While college students have a significant amount of power, in reality, money nevertheless remains the existent equivalent.
"In 2018, we have marriage equality legalized, Black Lives Matter marches are the norm in our community, racism isn't being tolerated like it used to, merely when it comes to homelessness, we seem to lack humanization of the issue."
"Nosotros accept people that are homeless, and people that are trying to end homelessness, simply we don't accept anybody in the middle," she said.
The biggest issue is the lack of advancement at the policy level to really implement change.
"We don't accept everyone in power who's really making homelessness their main crusade, and that'due south considering they don't know people on a personal level that have been affected by it," she says.
"These communities only don't know anything almost one another."
Now that Lichtman's completed both her undergraduate and chief's caste in social work at NYU, her mandate has become to work on bridging the gap, on a full-time ground.
JP Morgan, Bank of America and WeWork are some of the corporate partners she'due south been able to organize sock drives with, simply she admits there is still a lot of progress to be made.
"It'south an uphill battle, anybody is so transactional almost giving, and a lot of that transaction creates a power dynamic," she said. "I'k trying to break out of that."
One sock and i conversation over dinner, at a fourth dimension.
Source: https://www.goalcast.com/adina-lichtman-knock-knock-give-a-sock/