Photographer with Zoom Lens Creates Discomfort at Christmas Day Dinner at Sally Ann

On Christmas Day, the Salvation Army, Harbour Light, on Cordova St. near Main in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside served their annual free Christmas Dinner to anyone who wanted it. The turkey dinner with all the trimmings was reportedly tasty, with pie for dessert.

A man volunteering as a server walked around squirting extra whipped cream on everyone's pie, exclaiming, "It's Christmas!"

Some people were uncomfortable with the newspaper photographer (above) with a long zoom lens.

The tension between the need of the Sally Ann for publicity and the need for the poor to have privacy is ongoing. A man in a wheelchair told me that at a previous Sally Ann Christmas dinner, he had put his hand over his face and asked a television camera man to stop taking his photo.

Shoe Day at Sally Ann

A poster on the Downtown Eastside announced that if you arrived at the Salvation Army last Thursday wearing an old pair of shoes, you could exchange them for a "reconditioned" pair.

Some of the running shoes the Sally Ann gave away on Thursday looked new, some looked very slightly worn. There were running shoes for both men and women, and black leather shoes with thick rubber soles for men as well. There were free socks for everybody too.

But the shoe give away seemed to be an excuse for the Sally Ann to get your foot in the door -- so that medical personnel could get a look at your feet.

They had nurses inside and, according to the poster, a doctor. When people arrived, they were immediately asked if they wanted a foot bath. One woman said they cut the cankors off her feet. Another woman said they told her that he feet indicated that she might have diabetes.

If you didn't want a foot bath, they didn't pressure you; they let you go ahead into the free shoe section.

The poster was misleading in that it announced that people could come between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. to get the free shoes. Truth is, they didn't have enough shoes to last anywhere near that long. At 10:20, they were telling people that there would be none left by 1 p.m. One woman went in at about 10:40 and said she got the last pair of size 9 women's runners.

It wasn't too hectic inside the shoe give away room which generally functions as a shelter, because they only allowed five people in the door at a time. Everybody else had to wait in a line up on the sidewalk.

A few of the women trying on running shoes looked like they were a little high. A couple of the men were talking about criminal charges they or their pals were up on. One joked with the receptionist, "Do you charge by the meter or the foot?" She laughed, and he laughed even louder at his own joke.

I didn't see anybody leaving with major brand name running shoes on their feet, just the cheaper brands.

An older woman digging through boxes of shoes kept telling people not to dig for their own shoes, that she would do it for them. She seemed stressed.
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