The Toni-Love Project had its debut yesterday. At some point soon, my plan is to distribute homemade meals to my homeless neighbors. However, yesterday’s debut started out with cookie distribution. I started out with cookies because Toni loves sweets. She especially loves cookies and cake! In fact, she loves sweets the way I love salt! And this whole project is dedicated to Toni and to her special gift of bringing out the best in people.

I made a mountain of buttery sugar cookies, using the cookie cutters I inherited from my mom.  I made hearts, stars, circles, and other fun shapes. Since I was distributing at Green Lake, it seemed appropriate that I should include a few cookie cut-outs in the shape of a duck. The ducks were very hard to make.  Their beaks tended to burn or the ducks would break at the neck as I was transferring them from the baking sheet to the cooling rack.  Happy to report that a few delicate duck-shaped sugar cookies made it into the goodie bags. The other ducks, the broken ones who did not make it into the gift bags, were happily gobbled up by Rick.

I have never done anything like this in my life. I was informed by a friend who works with the homeless that I should be cautious when distributing meals or baked goods to the homeless. Sadly, many of the homeless suffer mental illness. She informed me that, last Monday, a beloved and seasoned social worker got killed by a mentally ill homeless person. He just snapped while she was working with him. As you can imagine, I was extremely cautious in my endeavors!

I prepared bags with little notes on them. The notes said:

Hi Neighbor,

I see you and I care.

I am leaving this for you.

Rick typed out my words, printed them out, and cut the messages so I could easily slip one message into each ziplock bag.

Rick accompanied me as I distributed cookies to my homeless neighbors at Green Lake. I approached each tent as if I were approaching a feral cat or dog. I tried to respect the tent and made my presence knows as I put the bag down.  I didn’t make much eye contact. I smiled, but who could see the smile behind my face mask?

On a few occasions, as I was walking away, I heard, “Thank you, lady!”  and “God bless.” In my heart I transferred all the thanks over to my sister Toni. These thanks belong to her along with my own words of thanks: “Thank you, Toni, for inspiring me to perform random acts of kindness.”

CARING BRIDGE:

I have set up a page for Toni’s Updates on Caring Bridge.  I think it will be easier for us Gallo sisters to manage updates and your wonderful replies/comments/words of encouragement (we sure appreciate them!) with Caring Bridge. If you are not familiar with Caring Bridge, it is very easy to use. I will post updates on Toni’s page, and you can access the updates using the URL below. If you “follow” the page, you will be immediately informed via email or text message every time I post an update, depending on how you set it up. Each person can customize their notification preferences.
Please go to:
Toni Gallo Health Update on Caring Bridge

URL: https://www.caringbridge.org/visit/tonistrong

Site Name: tonistrong
 
In about half an hour, you will see my update for today. Check out the photos in the photo gallery.
We welcome your comments, poems, inspirational stories of COVID-19 survivors, video links, any information you think would be helpful for us, words of compassion and support, prayers and/or healing thoughts. You can add photos of your furry 4-leggeds and include their names (or your chickens or your horses..or photos from your birding adventures..Toni loves animals and birds) or photos of you doing yoga (to our yogi friends), photos of flowers, videos of you dancing!. You can send Toni videos of you greeting her, telling her short funny stories! At some point, Toni will have access to viewing these photos with the help of medical staff . When she is stronger and more stable, we will get her an iPad. The staff will help her use it.
It’s a long road to recovery, but we are on that road, taking one step at a time.  Thank you for being a part of the #ToniStrong Team!