Person Left Item on Ground and People Miss Took It for Art
Formerly homeless homo, now flush with cash, tin can't stop giving to the people who helped him
'I don't know what I'd practice with all that money,' he says. 'A $100,000 is a lot for someone like me'
Charlie Delorme tells me to concur on for a 2d. He needs to check his bankbook to confirm what his current bank residual is because he has been writing a lot of large cheques lately and, he says, he is not done writing them yet.
Mr. Delorme is on a donation spree, a goodwill binge, sprinkling bucks around to all the organizations in Yellowknife that he believes in. The Yellowknife Salvation Army got $5,000, another $10,000 went to the Stanton Territorial Hospital Foundation and another $2,000 to the Sidedoor Youth Heart. Every time Mr. Delorme leaves his front door and makes the walk downtown — his nickname is Downtown Charlie — it seems every bit though somebody in Yellowknife is cashing in while everybody winds upwardly smiling, including the guy giving away the money.
He is pushing 65, that guy, has achy, arthritic knees and isn't going to live forever and having all the dough in the world — his balance is $100,000, he finally says — doesn't make a difference if you don't do something when yous can and, the way Downtown Charlie sees things, at present he can.
"I don't know what I'd practice with all that coin," he says. "A $100,000 is a lot for someone like me."
By "someone like me" he means someone who spent close to xl years living on the streets. Mr. Delorme's voice sounds ragged and weary from a lifetime of drink, and his retentiveness can be fuzzy in spots and, in pictures, he is not exactly the most photogenic. And still his greatest gift to Yellowknife, to all of u.s.a., even more than the greenbacks he has been giving away, could be Charlie himself.
In that location is a common, hither-we-go again narrative out in that location, about down-on-their luck types winning big in the lottery and then, a few years afterward, being down on their luck again after blowing their fortunes on bad decisions. Mr. Delorme recently received a settlement from the federal government for his years spent in residential schools. His first impulse wasn't to caput direct to the nearest bar to buy a round of drinks, just to stroll down to the Yellowknife CIBC to open an account and ask for a chequebook.
He has been signing cheques e'er since.
"I didn't have annihilation when I was a little child," Mr. Delorme says. "And when I got the money, non too long ago, I thought I could do something good. And I was lone, too, eh. And when I gave the money to the youth centre they were having a pancake breakfast with eggs and sausages and they said to me, 'Hey Charlie, why don't you lot come have breakfast us?'
"Young people have e'er treated me very well."
Garry Hubert, the executive managing director of the Sidedoor Youth Heart, explains that Mr. Delorme'due south generosity predates his newly acquired wealth. He tells me a story of a funeral reception in the basement of the local Catholic Church building. It was potluck. Charlie walked in and headed to the tables heaped with baked goods and casseroles and plunked downward a tin can of hearty beefiness stew.
"That is Charlie," says Mr. Hubert. "He didn't have annihilation, but he did the best with what he had."
He didn't have anything, but he did the all-time with what he had
Now he has a $100,000 in the bank. When he donated $5,000 to the Conservancy Army his but request was that the staff prepare a start-charge per unit supper — "steak with all the fixings" — for the residents. (Charlie prefers hotdogs and hamburgers.)
He tells me he has always worked at something. Caring for people's lawns, shovelling snow, collecting bottles and cans, doing some form of labour to scrounge upwardly enough cash to pay for the next bottle, for the side by side tin can of soup. But this coming Yellowknife winter his rent is already paid. There is a roof over his head, hotdogs in the fridge and an itchy feeling in his feet to get out walking, over again, down to the bank.
"I am going to give $5,000 to the Catholic Church side by side," Mr. Delorme says. "The priest, in that location is only one hither, and he is always working then difficult.
"It seems to me similar he could apply some aid."
National Mail
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Source: https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/formerly-homeless-man-now-flush-with-cash-cant-stop-giving-to-the-people-who-helped-him
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