Search for trashed trinkets triggers empathy for poor

By Ben Wood

POSTED: 01:30 a.m. HST, Jan 13, 2012

~~<p>HOLIDAY LEFTOVERS: Arriving home after a pre-Christmas board meeting, Waikiki Community Center exec director Mike Lee realized that in his haste he had scraped decorations for a buche de noel, the French name for a cake shaped like a fireplace log, into the trash along with cake leftovers after board members had their fill. Mike made the cake and wanted to save the decorations that included two chickadee replicas. A red glass that was given to him along with the little chickadees was also accidentally trashed.</p>
<p>So Mike drove back to the center. “At the corner of Building A in full view of all passersby, I opened the garbage can lid, turned on my flashlight, and dug into the trash,” Mike said. “Just then a car passed by, someone rolled down his window and roared, ‘Get out the garbage can, you bum!’ I just kept my head buried in the trash can, found my treasures and headed home.” Mike added that after all the trespass citations the center has been forced to issue and the homeless the staff has dealt with on campus, he experienced “empathy for those among us who survive only because of what they find in our trash or the hundreds we serve here through the emergency food bank” …</p>
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HOLIDAY LEFTOVERS: Arriving home after a pre-Christmas board meeting, Waikiki Community Center exec director Mike Lee realized that in his haste he had scraped decorations for a buche de noel, the French name for a cake shaped like a fireplace log, into the trash along with cake leftovers after board members had their fill. Mike made the cake and wanted to save the decorations that included two chickadee replicas. A red glass that was given to him along with the little chickadees was also accidentally trashed.

So Mike drove back to the center. “At the corner of Building A in full view of all passersby, I opened the garbage can lid, turned on my flashlight, and dug into the trash,” Mike said. “Just then a car passed by, someone rolled down his window and roared, ‘Get out the garbage can, you bum!’ I just kept my head buried in the trash can, found my treasures and headed home.” Mike added that after all the trespass citations the center has been forced to issue and the homeless the staff has dealt with on campus, he experienced “empathy for those among us who survive only because of what they find in our trash or the hundreds we serve here through the emergency food bank” … Login for more...