This woman looks for food and drink every day in front of Dededo Pizza Hut

This is Enriquita “Kit” Dionson. Every day for the past several months, Ms. Dionson has had to rely on the kindness of strangers so she can have something to eat and drink. She asked me for something to eat while I was leaving Pizza Hut in Dededo. So, I shared my pizza with her (fat boys like me really have no business eating all that pizza) and asked her if she had anything to drink. “I’ve been so thirsty all day,” she told me.

“What do you want to drink?” I asked her. “Just a small Pepsi.”

I got her the liter, came back outside and talked to her as she broke down in tears.

”This whole day I’ve been sitting here and this is the first time for me to eat,” the 65-year-old Chamorro woman said to me. She recently became homeless, a victim of Typhoon Mawar, when on May 24 the storm destroyed her home along Ysengsong Rd. “I’ve just been waiting for FEMA,” she said.

In the meantime, she has been sleeping in her car that doesn’t work, she said. And between the hours of 8 a.m. to 9 p.m., Ms. Dionson begs for food, drink, and other necessities in front of Pizza Hut and the plaza where Ajisen Ramen restaurant is located.

I told her I run a news thing and asked her if I could take our picture together and post it so that our readers and audience can know what she looks like so you all can help her, too. She agreed. She tried so hard to smile, but couldn’t hold one through her tears.

Joshua Tenorio, the lieutenant governor and head of the homelessness council, said he will dispatch his team to find and offer help to Ms. Dionson.

In the meantime, if you have the means, please bring this woman something to eat and drink. It breaks my heart that our people go hungry, and have to beg for food and water. Ms. Dionson is one of hundreds, if not thousands, of people who do not have enough to eat through the day. Imagine those older than her – or who are physically disabled – who cannot panhandle at a busy place. Or the kids whose parents can’t afford to do anything about their growling stomachs.

This isn’t the island I remember growing up, but together – helping one person at a time – we can make Guam a much better place despite the poverty and anguish that pervades.