Who doesn’t love looking through the steam to see the red glow just above a boiling pot of crawfish? When that avalanche of crawfish tumbles from the pot, one’s mouth can’t help but water. Crawfish season comes only once a year, and that’s reason enough to get together so we can all let the good times roll. Frank Briseno partnered up with Covenant House, and The Crisis HMR to put on a crawfish boil for youths going through a moment of struggle in their lives. When you only have the environment, and the people around you to rely on, organizations like these stand up to be there when others are not. A crawfish boil to remind these homeless youths that they deserved to have a good time, and dance, just as much as anyone else in this city echoing with live music. The Covenant house is the leader in helping trafficked, or homeless youths, get to the next phases of success in their lives. This crawfish boil event pales in comparison to all of the action taken by Covenant House on a daily basis.

Do you like being put into a box, limited in life, because of circumstances life left at your doorstep? We can all agree that this is unfortunately a prejudice that is prominent in tribal human nature; which is apparent throughout history. It is when we drop these walls that society built around us, that we can truly come together to understand one another. As soon as a person is known to have been homeless, an unfortunate stigma is placed upon them by citizens fortunate enough to avoid the system’s shredders. Every single person’s story is unique, just as every person within themselves is unique. We all, as humans, strive to alleviate our suffering; along with the suffering of our tribe. As citizens of society, it is now up to us to further our social evolution. We must evolve to drop social walls, allowing us to see every person as we see ourselves. This event is just an example of how we can all drop our walls to appreciate others, from different economic or racial backgrounds, as an extension of ourselves.

Frank Briseno leads the effort of appreciation by getting involved, taking action, and staying long after the event was over to help clean up. There are two types of people: there are those individuals that actually care enough to take action, and then in contrary there are those that like to say they care just for the camera. Mr. Briseno is that first person who stayed long after the crawfish boil was over. Troubled teens got the opportunity to alleviate their stress, unwind, and let loose dancing during their very own community’s crawfish boil. It was a sight that brought back fond memories of pre pandemic happiness. This scene was amongst the people that needed this joy the most. It seems that even as we go through these times, we can still strive to unite against poverty so we can lift each other into progress. More events like these that lift up the human spirit are needed to lift up humanity. 

By: Vitae LaVie  04/ 23/ 2021