At work, there was this quiet guy named Paul. Every day, same lunch. Plain sandwich. No chips, no soda, no flair. We joked about it. He just smiled, said nothing. When he finally quit, I offered to help clear out his desk—and that’s when I found the drawer full of children’s drawings.
Tied with a rubber band, the stack was full of hearts, stick figures, and messages like, “Thank you, Mr. Paul.” One showed a sandwich being handed to a line of stick-figure kids. Another read, “I’m not hungry today.”
I froze. Paul never mentioned having kids. No photos, no calls, no chatter. Curious, I asked him later. He didn’t answer directly. He just said, “Ever been to the West End Library around 6 p.m.? Come by sometime. You’ll see.”
A few days later, I went. Paul was there, cooler bag in hand, brown paper lunch sacks lined up. Fifteen kids waited—some homeless, some struggling quietly. Paul handed each one a sandwich with a few soft words. No fanfare.
“Most of them don’t get dinner,” he said, calm as ever. “So I make sure they get one meal a day.”
Those plain sandwiches? Not just his lunch. Every morning, he made the same peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for these kids—simple, reliable, familiar. “Same sandwich every time,” he said. “No complaints. For some, it’s the best part of their day.”
Our teasing now felt cruel. I started helping him after work. At first, silence. Then one evening, making sandwiches in his tiny apartment, I asked why he started.
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