Untitled from david curry on Vimeo.
Some years ago I ran a television commercial that showed a homeless child looking up at a parent and saying, “CARRY ME”. Great commercial created by the folks at Compass Media. It really highlighted the problem of homeless children.
Shortly after the commercial began to run I started to received calls from citizens suggesting that I was needlessly tugging at their hearts in order to raise money. ”There shouldn’t be any homeless kids in Pierce County”, one woman emphatically stated to me. True, there SHOULDN’T be any homeless children. Unfortunately there ARE many homeless children. In fact, the numbers are growing at an alarming rate.
I’m asking that the folks who care about making sure that no child is sleeping in a car or on the streets of Pierce County make a point to raise awareness about this issue. The Tacoma Rescue Mission has 80-85 children every night of the year and we know that there are at hundreds more that are homeless.
What can you do?
1. Tell everyone you know that this is a cause you really care about.
2. Regularly post updates on your facebook/twitter page that raise awareness.
3. Volunteer to help serve/mentor/teach homeless kids at the Mission and elsewhere
4. Financially support organizations that serve homeless children.
Bravo David. Again you have hit a home run. This has been a big problem in Pierce County for a very long time. I am so pleased to know that I work at an organization where the children come first. It has been my belief for many years that if we take care of “our” children in our own backyard,(meaning Tacoma), first, it would make it easier to take care of the hurting/homeless/low-income parents later.
There should never be a child going hungry or going without a place to call home in this community, EVER!
God Bless You!!
i see childern that are on the streets and questions arise in my mind. i recall what some one said to me one time, that there needs to be a place where the childern and their families need to get off the streets so that they can become equiped to stay off the streets. i thank God that He has provided the tacoma rescue mission to help these families. i also thak God that He meets our needs and also that He puts others needs on our hearts. homelessness in america is getting worse and the faculities like the mission need all the support that they can get. thak you resuce mission for helping me in meeting my needs.
Thank you, thank you, thank you…we need help!!!
You know, I consider it the strangest thing that it is considered in bad taste to use photos of a destitute child to tug at people’s heart strings. I have heard that it is considered best practice to avoid doing this. But I don’t understand what it wrong with getting to people’s hearts and making them uncomfortable about these things that exist. If it were up to me to determine best practice, I would say it involves telling the truth about all the uncomfortable things that people want to pretend don’t exist, and showing them photos of it, also. Children in Pierce County are homeless; children in Africa are starving. People need to be disturbed about this and do something.
I really like the fresh perpective you did on the issue. Really was not expecting that when I started off studying. Your concepts were easy to understand that I wondered why I never looked at it before. Glad to know that there’s an individual out there that definitely understands what he’s discussing. Great job