A Feel Good Day

So today was a great day in the office, and it was really all about the vendors and the feel good feelings and excitment that they spread through the office.

(It was quite a contrast to the crazy day that was yesterday with Mark Jones rambling a mile a minute about being a Boy Scout and learning how to make a fire, and Cliff Carle playing office volunteer Amy Orndorff in chess while loudly trash talking to no end and saying "umm, umm, umm. toasty" one to many time.)

Anyway, the day began with vendor Anthony Crawford talking about how he was working hard to recruit new vendors and spreading the word to all the panhandlers he saw saying "This is what I do, look how Street Sense has help me. It can help you too."

Later new vendor Lee Mayse came in all excited, exclaiming how he had been spreading the word about Street Sense and how the paper was "hot." He said that all sorts of people were snatching up the paper and giving him well above the $1 donations.

Then veteran vendor Conrad Cheek came it at the end of the day talking about a "blitz" idea. Him and Jesse (the vendor manager) plotted out a grand plan where four or five vendors go to an area where vendors don't typically go and sell the paper and promote it intensely for a day or two to really get people interested and to open up new locations for vendors. I think it is a great idea and really hope Jesse and the other vendorsfollows up on it.

But the best part of the day was when Jesse and vendor Jake Ashford came back after seeing an early screening of "The Pursuit of Happiness" (The Will Smith movie about a homeless man and his son that is due out in theaters next Friday.) Both of them came back raving about the movie and saying how realistic and touching it was. In fact both of these grown men admitted to crying during the movie. And then Jake called his teenage son and talked briefly but nevertheless, started getting teary-eyed.

I love the vendors!! They are such great men and women with genunine hearts and real enthusiam. And I hope through the brief encounters readers have on the street with them, they get to see this truely human side as well....LAURA