Children are naturally curious about the world around them. When Chase Hansen was only 4 years old, he encountered homeless people for the first time while shopping with his dad at an outdoor mall in Salt Lake City, Nevada. It's no wonder that he had a lot of questions.
"Chase looked at me and said, 'Dad, who are these people? Why don't they have a place to stay?' " John Hansen recalled. "After I explained that they had run into hard times and were homeless, I knew that we were looking at an educational opportunity. My son wanted to help them."
The father and son convinced a local Jamba Juice store to donate more than 100 smoothies (果汁) and the pair gave them out to homeless people in a park.
After that, they came up with an even better idea. "I wanted a way to get to know people better," Chase said. "So, my dad and I decided to start taking some of the homeless people we'd met out to lunch."
"A lot of people walk right past homeless people and don't see the person," he said. "I know now that they're people just like us. They want to make a connection and not feel so alone in the world."
Hundreds of lunches later, they run a self-funded charity called Project Empathy(同情) to help inspire others to meet and to create relationships with the homeless people in their neighborhoods. The organization provides a list of resources that can help homeless people with food, housing and employment.
John said that what started as a way to spend quality time with his son has turned into a passion for both of them." "Chase and I realized that the country needed an army of people to practice empathy, and that by doing something as simple as taking a homeless person to lunch, we could maybe inspire others to do the same," he said. "Any time you can help to give someone a voice, it's empowering."