READER’S DIGESTNever Too
Young to Care
After seeing a homeless man sleeping in a carpark,
a young boy set out on a missionI
t was a typical freezing cold
winter’s night back in 2017, as
Adrian Young, now ten, raced
his father, Will, to their car in
the largely empty carpark of
the local Super Rooster restaurant
in Toowoomba, in Southern
Queensland. His mother, Jennifer,
lagged behind the pair with Adrian’s
younger sister, Emily Rose. They
were keen to get into the car to
escape the cold 1°C night. But as
they reached the car, Adrian’s gaze
turned towards the rear of the
carpark, where a man was laying on
a makeshift bed of blankets. “I felt
bad as I was trying to get out of the
cold and he was about to sleep in the
freezing cold,” says Adrian. Will went
over to the man to see if he was safe,
and also gave him about $20, hoping
he could put it towards some hot
food or perhaps a warm jumper.
Will and Jennifer quickly forgot
about the encounter, swept up
in the pace of running a smallBYKathy Buchananbusiness while raising a young
family. But over the next week
Adrian couldn’t shake the feeling
that he hadn’t done enough. For
the first time he realised that there
were lots of other homeless people
without a warm bed. When Jennifer
explained to him that there were
whole families with kids just like
him who were homeless, the little
boy was shocked.
Adrian told his parents he wanted
to buy the homeless man a house
to live in but when he discoveredALL PHOTOGRAPHS COURTESY OF JENNIFER GILLETT YOUNG36 Augus t 2019