A loving heart for the homeless:

Anne Zhang

zhangy49@gmail.com

AT 6:30 p.m. every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, many homeless people in Xi’an, capital of northwestern China’s Shaanxi Province, go to a Catholic church in the city’s Lianhu District. But instead of attending Mass or praying, they go there to get free food from a British man.

Tony Day, 48, runs a charity kitchen in Xi’an and has offered free porridge and buns to thousands of homeless people over the past seven years.

A bold step

Day was born in Preston, England, and used to be an electrical engineer with the British Royal Navy. After 10 years of service, he started a finance company and a real estate company.

Day, then a workaholic, put in 16 hours a day and soon made his fortune in England, owning a manor house and several cars. But after becoming tired of competing for profits and keeping up with the Joneses, Day took a bold step in 2002, when he sold his belongings and began traveling around the world.

A believer in Buddhism, Day is passionate about charitable work. In 1996, Day and some friends donated medical equipment and household supplies worth US$1.6 million to poor children in Italy and Romania. He continued his habit of charitable volunteering during his global travels. One day, while meditating, an idea about practicing Buddhism in India came to his mind.

Day told Shenzhen Daily that he respects and admires Indian spiritual leader Mahatma Gandhi and Catholic nun and missionary Mother Teresa, who followed their hearts and made great contributions to the world.

“I am following my heart now,” Day said. “And I’ve followed it ever since I left England.”

Bringing love

On his way to India, Day passed through Xi’an, where he came across an old homeless woman asking passersby for money. Tony initially refused her begging, but he returned to the lady the next day and offered her a free meal. Although the lady turned down his offer, Tony said he made up his mind to help homeless people in Xi’an, especially after learning that the city didn’t have an organization that regularly offered free food to the needy, like soup kitchens in Western countries.

His new effort began Dec. 18, 2005, in downtown Xi’an, where Day and two Australian friends gave porridge and 50 buns to 25 homeless people. After that day, he soon established the Yellow River Soup Kitchen and began offering homeless people free food outside a local Catholic church every Friday. The service expanded to twice a week in 2006 and to three times a week in April 2007.

Besides food, Day’s organization gives free haircuts, clothing and medical aids to the homeless. He also organizes volunteers to help residents and elementary students in poor countryside areas. His team has brought donations to more than 45,000 people in poverty-stricken areas around the region. Last year, Day organized 181 such charitable projects.

So far, Day has spent 400,000 yuan (US$64,000) of his savings on the charitable efforts. He said the organization is primarily supported by volunteers and donations. More than 4,000 volunteers have worked for the kitchen since its inception in 2005, and about 300 of them help the organization on a regular basis.

Day said his organization never holds fund-raisers or asks people for donations.

“People just come to us and donate money, vehicles, clothes and medicines,” he said. “Without volunteers and donations, the kitchen wouldn’t be able to survive.”

Day lives in an urban village on the city’s northern outskirts. Neither an air conditioner nor heating equipment is installed in his apartment. Day said he prefers a simple life.

“If it’s cold, I will put on more clothes. If it’s warm, just let the body sweat,” he said.

Showing respect

Unlike many Chinese, Day never questions people who turn to him for help. Some volunteers at the kitchen once asked Day why he helps those who are able to work and live on their own. His answer is one word: respect.

“People have the right to decide their ways of living,” he said. “But I believe most homeless people have no choices.”

The homeless people Day has helped include poor widowers, young people from outside Xi’an who have suffered family calamities, an old man who has gone through bankruptcy due to a difficult and costly disease, and moody psychotics.

“These people need not only material support but also care and respect,” Day said.

Day requires volunteers at his soup kitchen to show respect in every detail while serving the homeless. One of the kitchen’s backbone members, surnamed Liu, said volunteers are required to look at homeless people’s eyes when giving them food and are not allowed to take pictures of them or ask questions, such as why they come to the kitchen for help, why they don’t work, or why they don’t send their children to school.

New lives

Such care and respect can inspire people to change their lives, and Day has helped many such people turn their lives around.

Wang Danhua, for example, lost his right leg in an accident in 2004 and found no other recourse but begging for food after becoming confined to a wheelchair. Day helped Wang get an artificial leg, regain his walking ability, find a job and get into an apartment.

With Day’s help, more than 85 other homeless people have found jobs and started new lives. And more have found jobs on their own and started to help others, passing on Day’s love and respect for those in need.

Day keeps himself inspired by looking at a wall of his soup kitchen, where he has hung words attributed to American poet and scholar Clarissa Pinkola Estes: “Ours is not the task of fixing the entire world all at once, but of stretching out to mend the part of the world that is within our reach.”

By helping homeless people, Day feels he is doing just that.

“Small and simple actions can make big changes,” he said.

“Small and simple actions can make

big changes.”

—Tony Day