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Photography: Silver: The Church On Buck Alley


 

The Parramore district of Orlando, Florida is infamous for its drug trade, prostitution, street beggers, and vagabonds. Still held at bay by Division Street and train tracks, this poorest of neighborhoods lies directly West of downtown Orlando where new multi-million-dollar constructions are continuously erected without an end in sight. Buck Alley is a small back street behind a run-down strip of storefronts where a lot of drug dealing occurs.

Nearly each day during midday hours, a passionate man named Pastor Walker preaches scripture to a few dozen unemployed or disabled locals in an empty parking lot. I was invited by my homless friend Mike to come witness the service. As I entered the back lot of the storefronts, a quiet man handed me a worn raffle ticket. At the end of the service, anyone who came on time and received a ticket was given a bag of donated groceries, their "daily bread." I accepted my bag with gratitude. For many, this is more dignified than panhandling, and the message provides them with hope of a way out.

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     © copyright 2007 Joshua James Freeman