Hero #080: Allan Law … (03/15/16)
Allan Law works late nights, and had pulled into the parking lot of an Edina church for a quick nap before heading back to “work.” He was snoozing soundly there when a rap on his window woke him and he found himself staring up at a police officer. The officer checked Law’s driver’s license and asked why he was sleeping in a parking lot just a few miles from his Edina home. Law, a captivating storyteller, explained his current vocation: delivering sandwiches to the homeless and hungry in the Twin Cities. And the officer exclaimed, “Oh, you’re the sandwich man!”
It turns out the officer was familiar with Law’s story because he knew someone who was part of a church group that helped make sandwiches for Law’s non-profit organization, Minneapolis Recreation Development Inc. (link in second comment box below), which launched the 363 Days Food Program — named for Law’s sandwich deliveries, which made every night of the year except Thanksgiving and Christmas. That’s right, since retiring in 1999 as a Minneapolis schoolteacher, Law spends his handing out sandwiches to the homeless. In fact, every year he gives out over 500,000 sandwiches, 5000 pair of socks, and 50,000 bus tokens, along with 1000’s of mittens, lots of baby formula, hundreds of blankets, and even money for medical co-pays — all of it funded by Law’s retirement pension and donations from the public. He stops at shelters. He stops under bridges. He heads into neighborhoods that most people only talk about in hushed tones. It doesn’t matter to Law where he has to go, because his life has become all about helping anyone who needs help.
And Law is not only incredibly generous, but exceedingly humble as well. “I’ve always been against publicity. I wanted to spend my life helping people without any recognition” – fittingly uttered by a man who didn’t want to accept a McKnight Foundation Human Service award in person because he didn’t want to leave the people he helps, even for one day. This is a man who has been recognized by three presidents and received countless awards, including the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Gold Medallion presented at the U.S. Supreme Court – a case where though Law did travel to Washington D.C. to accept the award, and yet returned without accepting his invitation to visit the White House — because he needed to get back to the people he helps in Minneapolis. Amazingly, aside from Thanksgivings and Christmases, the only other days Law has missed delivering his sandwiches over the years were those in March of 2013 — when he was having surgery for prostate cancer. And even then he snuck out of the rehabilitation center where he was recovering to deliver sandwiches while wearing his nightgown, slippers, and a turtleneck.
Law’s apartment houses 17 freezers for sandwiches and has no bed, seeing as no bed is necessary – seeing as how he never spends a night at home. It turns out he doesn’t wake up to do good; he stays awake to do good; helping people full time and sleeping in his spare time. “Am I glad I’m working 18 hours a day? Not really. But when you see a need you fill it … It’s true that if I had accepted more publicity 40 years ago we would probably have a facility someplace. And yet I would never be there. I’d still be on the street helping people.”
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