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The Ottawa woman has never forgotten that bean sandwich.

When she was a child, growing up in what is now Vanier, transient men would sometimes come to her family’s home in search of food and water. One day a man asked for food and her mother gave him all she had in the house — a bean sandwich.

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“He sat on the front porch in the cold eating his baked bean sandwich and every bean that fell he would pick up and put in his mouth.”

That image stayed with the woman, who is now 78. “I never forgot how terrible that hunger must have been that every bean that fell in the dirt he would pick up and put in his mouth.”

And it has helped shape her life.

She and her husband, who live on a modest fixed income, donate to numerous charities every year with money, food and shopping carts full of warm clothing.

“We have got a very simple lifestyle. This is what is important.”

This week they delivered a cheque for $4,000 to The Ottawa Mission, far exceeding what they usually give. It is a large amount of money, she acknowledged, but, “This is a crisis. There is tremendous need.”