The No Project – Joey (Joseph)

A summary once again for those who’ve just joined us… The No Project is a small personal initiative I’m running in September where each time I approach a potential stockist and they say no, I put aside $3. At the end of the week, I take the sum of money that has accumulated and give it to a homeless person.

It’s just a small way I’m trying to stay motivated by turning my crushing negatives into a positive for someone else.

Anyway, this week I had six nos, so $18 in total. I gave them to a guy called Joey.

I actually did a little recon earlier in the week, and found Joey where I’d seen him previously at my local train station.

Joey asked if I was sure when I gave him the cash. I apologised that it wasn’t more. He told me he’d been to church for the first time today and asked in all seriousness “are you an angel?”. I laughed and told him no. He reached out and touched my shoulder “to be sure”.

Joey and I chatted a little while. He went into detail about what he was going to spend his $18 on, to assure me it wouldn’t be wasted “on alcohol or smokes or something”.

As it turns out, he’s a recovering alcoholic. He shyly said he’s been dry now for six weeks. He has twin sons, but he’s not allowed to see them much (they’re with their mother), although now he’s passed the six week mark, he’ll get visitations. At this point, he looked like he was getting teary, so I wished him a good weekend and went to leave.

As I turned I said to him that I thought his boys would be so proud and inspired when they grew up and understood everything he’d been through and how much he cared about them.

He thought for a moment and then said “I think you are an angel. You just don’t know it yet.”