Today, I got up the nerve to knock on a stranger’s door and ask if we could harvest his rhubarb.  He was thrilled to get rid of it.  Five minutes later, Aidan and I were harvesting the biggest load of rhubarb yet.

Chopping off the leaves turned out to be Aidan’s favourite part – a nine year old with a big knife – of course he thought that was fun!  He was actually a little annoyed when his dad and little sister cut in on his action.

In the end, we got a whopping 18 lbs (8 kg) of rhubarb.  

This time, since there was a significant amount, we brought the rhubarb to Siloam Mission.  They were thrilled at the prospect of making a rhubarb dessert.

My husband and kids went with me to deliver the rhubarb.  On the way there, we talked about homelessness, but our talking didn’t prepare us for the line of people waiting for food and a place to rest for the night.  On the way home, there was silence in the car.  We were all processing the sight of so many people of all ages, sizes, genders and cultures needing assistance.  Later, when we asked the kids what they thought about what we saw, Melanie said she was sad and Aidan said he didn’t understand why there were so many people there.  We tried our best, but can anyone give a reasonable explanation as to why there are so many homeless people in a rich country like ours?

Making rhubarb crisp, building community, helping others and giving us all something to think about – it truly was a good day for Fruit Share.