165th Week Update - Miles Neighborhood Food Collection Project

Hi Folks,

One Can A Week

Works for the Left … and the Right

Molly sets up her tripod and JVC camera to start the taping session.

Molly Thrasher, a blogger on the TucsonCitizen.com web site who reviews eateries around town, didn’t tell me her political leanings with respect to her new venture, creating documentaries on self-contained community projects such as One Can A Week, but the title of her new web site TryFreedom.org gave me a bit of a clue. The truth is I was having a hard time remembering the web site name every time I  introduced Molly to a neighbor. For Molly’s new web site, TryFreedom.org. some reason, TryFreedom is just not a left leaning moniker.

Molly’s new web site, TryFreedom.org.

Anyway, Molly is doing us a terrific favor by video taping a number of our neighbors talking about their experiences with One Can A Week. Of course, I’m in there, too.

The idea of the documentary is to show that we, the people, can fix a huge social problem like hunger without the help of “The Government” or other social agencies. I totally agree with this premise.

As we wrapped up the video session, I was beginning to understand Molly’s motivation for taping the documentary. Proof is so much better than saying over and over again that we, not the government should fix our own problems.

I also brought up the fact that unbridled freedom is never the answer either. Anyone can have all the freedom he or she wants just as long as no one gets hurt. Not polluted streams. No mine cave-ins. No housing crisis. As we used to say back in the day, your freedom stops at the tip of your neighbor’s nose.

Like Out of a Movie
When Molly and I pulled up, Kym was by herself on 13th Street, tugging her food wagon slowly behind her. But within a minute or two, folks started to spill out of their homes to hand Kym their donations. There was so much energy; the scene appeared to be choreographed. And the timing couldn’t have been better, what with a videographer along for the ride.

We collected a total of 174 lbs. of food. The money we donated amounted to $63.50, two $25.00 checks and $13.50 in cash.

See you Sunday,

Peter