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Washing the Feet of the Homeless

By Jeralyn, Section Off Topic
Posted on Sun Mar 21, 2004 at 09:45:33 AM EST
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Our pick for inspirational story of the day....volunteers in Berkeley gather weekly to wash the feet of the city's young homeless.

The service is part of a youth clinic program run primarily by UC Berkeley undergrads near campus with funding from the university and other sources. ...The 4-year-old clinic also provides counseling, acupuncture and legal advice. No one is sure how the foot-washing started, but Ryan Houk, 20, a Cal student who helps coordinate the clinic, said he thought it probably started for religious reasons (in the Bible, Jesus washes his disciples' feet as a gesture of humility) but evolved into simply a nice thing to do for people who are out on their feet all day.

There are about 500 homeless kids in on the streets in Berkeley. The interviews with some the kids and their responses to the footwashing really make the article. Here's a few of them:

On another night, I met a 23-year-old guy who gave his name as Spencer. He wore black, a silver ring through his nose, a gigantic safety pin dangling from one of his belt loops. He said besides the obvious pleasure of having a beautiful woman like Cal student Birdie Nguyen wash his feet, the ritual made him feel homey and safe, the way you sometimes feel when you're taken care of as a little kid. ''It relaxes me completely. It makes me feel a lot better.''

On another night, I met a homeless guy in his 20s who goes by the name Bug. He had reddish hair tied back in a ponytail, freckles and pale blue eyes. He sat in a row of three homeless guys getting their feet washed in white basins. To his left was a table full of food: burritos, pizza, fruit salad, sandwiches and Power Bars. Behind him were two tables with kids being treated with acupuncture. To his right a volunteer mended clothes. The washing ritual, Bug said, is ''my way of keeping myself from killing someone out there. I come here every week to relax.''

The volunteers are interviewed as well:

I met Nilsson, 19. She had just finished washing one young homeless man's feet using a tiny scrubbing brush with a rubber ducky on its top and a small square pink bar of soap. ''My mom thinks what I'm doing is gross,'' she said, ''but I really like doing it. I had no idea what other people's lives were like until I started volunteering here.''

Nguyen, 19, who grew up in suburban south Sacramento, told me she volunteers to wash feet because she doesn't want to keep walking by the kids on Telegraph Avenue without knowing who they are. ''I just think these street kids are so much a part of Berkeley, to get to know them is to get to know Berkeley,'' she said.

The ritual is enriching for both the volunteers and the homeless:

The foot washing gave them a few moments of human touch, something they needed but wouldn't come out and ask for. And it gave the volunteers, for a few moments, a chance to help the homeless. "A lot of these street kids hang out on Telegraph Avenue," Nguyen said. "It's nice to know who they are and even be friends with some of them . . . to see them (on the street) and not ignore them, not to look away."

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