IMPORTANT NOTE: Humanity for the Homeless is now in archive mode. There is no fancy text, layout, images, animations, etc. The purpose of moving the site content here is to help save money, while at the same time preserving the content of what happened during my trip. All images have been very compressed for page speed. Some edits have been made and are marked with an "EDIT: mm/dd/yyyy". I have not re-read everything I wrote during this trip, and do not plan to at the current time. I probably do not agree with everything I wrote, but will keep it for the sake of truthfulness. Enjoy!
In San Francisco, I was unable to get plugged into a shelter, so I decided to take to the streets. While getting to know some of the San Francisco homeless community, I met Dophie. Everything that I learned on this trip, he was able to eloquently summarize over a few conversations. Below I have included an excerpt from the first part of our conversation, as well as the full audio. I will put the second part of the conversation up soon.
Dophie is the patron saint of Humanity for the Homeless.
“All that a lot of us really ask for is a little human compassion and a little understanding. The majority of the people don’t want to sit out here and commit crime to get the things they need, whether it’s food… or whatever it might be. It’s what they feel by their surroundings that they’re left with. They haven’t been… and this is 100% true… they haven’t been taught any better, and they can’t learn from somebody they don’t respect. A lot of these people [homeless] don’t respect the majority of people, because the majority of people don’t respect them.”
When I sat down to write this blog entry, the original intention was to talk about my positive experience in the Norman, Oklahoma shelter, the friends I had made there, and my take away from the week. While I still plan on writing that post in the future, something happened yesterday that has redirected my energy.
The past few days have been a whirlwind. With the help of very little sleep and fast food, I made it from Norman, OK to San Francisco for the final leg of my trip. I am staying with one of my buddies from college, Eric Coatney, and will spend the week working in a shelter a few blocks from his apartment. Before starting at the shelter, like most places I’ve visited, I spent the first day touring the city. Eric and I ended up walking close to ten miles, exploring sites both well-known and hidden.
Homelessness is rampant in San Francisco. One does not have to walk ten miles to realize this fact (see this link for some quick info). Every corner… every alley… every populated area… the homeless permeate the city. Even one the wealthiest regions on the planet cannot manage its homeless population.
The catalyst for this trip involved a disturbing event that I witnessed in Houston (see trip catalyst). It only seems appropriate that after all that I have seen, I must be disturbed one last time.
When touring the city yesterday, Eric and I arrived at the square populated by the Grace Cathedral and Fairmont hotel. A man starting walking toward us donning a torn, dirty pink t-shirt, short skirt, and ear plugs in both ears. He was talking to himself, staring at the ground, and seemingly limping on both legs. This image has unfortunately become common to me working in the shelters, so I briefly explained to Eric what we were seeing. Unfortunately, I am not personally equipped to handle a person having a schizophrenic flareup outside of the context of a shelter, so I figured it was best to let this man go on his way.
This event did not disturb me, but what Eric pointed out to me did. About 100 feet away, two men were video taping the event and laughing. Here was a man at his literal wits end, and two people decided to take advantage of the situation to show all of their friends back home (they seemed to be tourists). The misfortune of one is comedy for another I suppose…
I have been asked over and over again for my solution to the homelessness problem. Though I have some ideas, and have seen which techniques do and do not work, any answer that I give will not be sufficient. How do we reach such an answer? We must engage in productive discussion of homelessness, based on a solid understanding of the problem.
I have identified three levels in which people discuss homelessness. The highest and most productive level comes after working with and becoming engaged in the homeless community. It is here that one can learn about the psychology of homelessness, the cultural norms in the community, and the circumstances that spiral people to a life on the streets. I encourage everybody to gain experience to reach this level of understanding. If everybody sat at this level, I truly believe homelessness would be gone in a matter of years.
If we move down one rung on the ladder of discussion, we find a group of people that admit at the core of homelessness, there is mental illness, drug dependency, and alcoholism… and let me say, it is rampant. Like the gentleman I saw yesterday, it is not uncommon to meet people with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and other mental illness in the shelters. Even more so, what would be classified as milder disorders, anti-social behavior, mild depression, and learning disabilities really show themselves in the shelter. Mix these mild disorders with a few bad life events, and one ends up on the street. This was my level of understanding at the beginning of this trip.
The final, and most non-productive rung, is to dismiss the homeless as lazy/unmotivated. My ears have unfortunately been deafened by people with this view. Even if they do not believe in making a sweeping generalization of the community, I always get the, “yeah, but there are still those people that are just taking advantage of the system.” After the things that I have seen, if these people do exist, they are so few and far between that their burden on society is very minimal. Many times, I have seen this view as an excuse to do nothing at all.
My goal, through my experiences, stories, and understanding of the problem is to lift discussion off of this bottom rung. That’s it. Once we no longer consider the lowest level as a possibility, nothing will be hindering us from having truly productive discussion about what is to be done.
To better understand this, let me introduce an analogy. In recent history, we have seen a movement against the use of vaccinations. There is very little evidence supporting that vaccinations are harmful, and most of this evidence comes from questionable/second-hand sources. In the discussion of vaccinations, those who are actively trying to solve the problems of treatable diseases in children sit at the “highest rung” category. These people would include scientists, chemists, and doctors. The next level are those people that acknowledge vaccines are good, and should be used to reduce diseases in children. Though their understanding of the science may not be as in depth as the former, they allow progress in the field to happen. The final category, the lowest rung, are those people who actively campaign against vaccines. We could dismiss them, but these people still have sway in society. In many states, legislation has been put forward to not require vaccinations, which could lead to dire consequences at every rung on the ladder.
Homelessness is a social issue, and can only be solved in a social manner. It is imperative for our communities to rally around the homeless, and devise solutions that come from a place of education, love, and sympathy. We must no longer view the homeless as objects of laughter, scoff, and fear. When we get to this point, we can discuss real solutions.
My call to everyone: Kill the stigma, embrace the community, solve the problem!
The events in these posts took place from February 23 to February 26.
This will be the final entry (for now) on my experiences in NYC.
In my travels, I have had the opportunity to work with a plethora of different people. In Chicago, I mainly worked with homeless people who volunteered in the shelter. In Boston, I worked with groups volunteering from financial firms, local businesses, and other outlets (check out Boston College’s 4Boston). In NYC, I worked with people who were somewhere in between.
One of the most unique things the Bowery did was its “Gateway” program. Gateway is a year-long course that helps at-risk men acquire some kind of trade, and get their lives back on track. The best way I heard it explained was by one of the men in the program, “Man, I’ve worked my whole life, but only about 20% of it was on the books. I’m trying to do something different.” Gateway begins at the Bowery, where the men in the program live, work, and have Bible classes for about 3-months. Once they have finished their time at the Bowery, they move to another property equipped with classrooms, computer labs, and shops to learn a skill, trade, and other constructive work.
Though some of the men were a little rough around the edges, I found myself enjoying their company. I cannot speak for all of them, but the men took their work, and the work of helping the homeless, very seriously. Many had never actually been homeless, but had been close. They had seen what the “streets” can do to people, and how easy it is to end up back where they started. Because of these things, the men of Gateway helped the homeless with a disposition of true compassion, one that I can only hope to emulate in the future.
The events in these posts took place from February 23 to February 26.
Many times when I volunteer, there is not a set of tasks for me when I arrive at the beginning of the day, so I have to seek out jobs from the people that work at the shelters. My second day at the Bowery was no different. Upon arrival, I was told to locate Pastor Jason (the lead pastor of the Bowery Mission), because there was thought that he had a few tasks to take care of.
I found Pastor Jason, whom I talked to briefly the day before, on his way down from his office. Before he gave the me the task, he asked what I was capable of and willing to do. My standard reply was always, “anything and everything.” Jason liked this, and then proceeded to tell me that I was to scrape the gum off of the chapel floor, sweep it up, mop the floor, return the pews to their original orientation, and, once I had finished this, clean the stairs going up to the balcony (that were at one time red, but had turned a shade of gray due to all the treading), and finally, clean the balcony itself. He said the work wasn’t going to be glamorous, but there were going to be some esteemed guests visiting the Bowery, and the place needed to be cleaned up.
My curiosity was killing me, so I probed as to who would be visiting the Bowery. Robert De Niro. Not only was he visiting, a movie was to be filmed there. This led to a flood of questions:
What’s the premise of the movie? De Niro gets in trouble and has to do community service. (Short Version)
Where will they be shooting? The chapel, my (Pastor Jason’s) office, and the balcony.
Are you going to be in the movie, Pastor Jason? Yes.
The last question made me start thinking. I asked if he was going to be in the movie, was his name going to appear in the credits? The answer was yes. I told him that I would be happy to scrape the gum off of the floors, but he had to see what strings he could pull to get “Andrew Rowe- Chapel Gum Scraper” added to the credits.
The events in these posts took place from February 23 to February 26.
My first day at the Bowery, I ate lunch by myself. The shelter clients were in the daily, pre-lunch chapel, and a group of volunteers from a local business were busy eating and chatting about work-related antics a few tables away from me. In walks Pauline. She noticed me and asked jokingly if I had been banned from the group. I laughed and briefly explained what I was doing, and that I was not with them. She asked if she could join me, which I encouraged.
We started with light conversation. When she talked, her accent heavily blanketed her words. Definitely not typical for NYC. I pointed it out, and she explained that she was from Bryant, Arkansas. Ah! One of my people! We reminisced on warmer weather, mutually visited locations, and eventually got onto the topic of how she ended up in NYC. In her past life, Pauline had been a nurse in the Little Rock area, and had made yearly mission trips to the Bowery as a girl. She ended up getting so involved in what she called “the community” associated with the Bowery, she felt like she had to stay. She now works full-time in the kitchen.
Imagine that… abandoning all that is familiar! Moving from small town Arkansas, to an apartment in the big city for the soul purpose of full-time volunteer work. Pauline left behind family, friends, and other things she once held dear, but she was excited about the prospect. Why?
In her words, “The men that come here are just like big kids. They need a little love and a mom.”
While working at the Norcross Cooperative Ministry in Norcross, GA, I saw this posted on the break room wall. It summarizes some of my reasons for doing this trip really well, and touches on some of the things I talk about on my “About” page. As Christians, it is up to us to be the answer to prayer. (EDIT: 06/02/2019 Clarification, we participate in Christ's answer to prayer)
Christ has no body now on earth but mine. No hands but mine, no feet but mine, mine are the eyes through which Christ’s compassion is to look out to the earth, mine are the feet by which he is to go about doing good and mine are the hands by which He will use to bless us now. -St. Teresa of Avila
I’m going to start breaking my posts into smaller, more frequent chunks to cut down on writing time for me, and to keep it digestible for the reader. This is the first portion on a series about my experiences in NYC.
The events in these posts took place from February 23 to February 26.
In my travels thus far, I have done every odd job imaginable. I consider myself an expert on industrial-sized food prep. I know the proper way to mix bleach with water so it’s effective, but not smelly. I discovered that the CDC states that canned food is still good six months after expiration. I found that hauling trash is not so bad, assuming it’s not dripping (on a side note: PLEASE STOP THROWING AWAY FULL DRINKS INTO TRASH CANS. I was bad about it, but I don’t do it anymore after what I’ve seen. Someone has to deal with it later). In the past, people have asked me if I’m related to Mike Rowe. Though I can’t be sure, one could make a show about the work required to maintain a shelter.
My reasoning for doing this mission is more than to lend a helping hand, but it is easy to get lost in work, especially work that sees small reward (cleaning, painting, moving furniture, etcetera). My last day at the Bowery Mission put it in perspective for me. I spent that Thursday and Friday cleaning, organizing, and sanitizing the balcony of the beautiful and historic Bowery chapel. This was one of the larger personal projects I undertook during my work, and it was nice to see the finished product.
I wish I had taken “before” photos.
I even used sticky notes!
After taking a few pictures, and showing some of the staff my handiwork, one of the pastors, Keith, responded to the clean balcony with the following parable:
Three masons were chipping away at bricks. A noble man on a horse came by and asked the masons what they were doing. The first responded, “I am chipping away at a brick, sir.” The second said, “I am creating the foundation for a wall, sir.” The third replied, “I am building a chapel, sir.”
Though it is easy for me to lose perspective on my work, motivation comes when I realize I’m not just taking out trash, cleaning a building, or preparing food. All of this work, by volunteers and staff, is to create a place of refuge and peace for those who need it most. To truly understand the implications and impact of our day-to-day life, one can hold up their actions to the parable of the brick masons to see what they are truly doing.
The need for love in the Boston shelter was personified by “Juiceman” Don (he is the guy on my left in the picture from the previous post). I was the only person who called him that, but after meeting so many people, associating a person with his/her job is the only way I can keep up with all of them. “Juiceman” Don’s job was to man the juice station. It was obvious Don had a good sense of humor, so he took no offense to the name. We had a casual relationship during my time in Boston. I would come in at 7 am, he would say “Andrew!”, and I would reply “Juiceman Don!”, and that was it. We would exchange a few words throughout the day, but nothing of great significance to report.
I had the opportunity to observe Don when working on the food serving line; it was amazing. A man or woman would walk through, many times in a bad mood, and the volunteers would give the typical, hollow lip service. “I like your hat! How are you today sir? We have some great food for you!” The guest would give a pleasant response, but they could read the words for what they were. Then they would spot Don. The conversation would go something like this:
Don: “[Insert name here], what’s good?”
Client: “Not much Don, just chilling. You?”
Don: “Ahhhhh same, man, same.”
Client: “We don’t have that tomato juice again, do we?”
Don: “Yeah, but it’s good for your blood pressure!”
Client: “Alright, alright! Good seeing you Don!”
The conversations were quick, and had no great substance, but Don was unknowingly doing something more important. Don showed an authentic love to the people who ate there, and they responded positively to this. The anger and depression that saturated their being would disappear, and all it took was some genuine small talk, a smile, and a positive attitude. As I continue my journey, I hope to be able to foster the same authenticity as Don.
After a busy month of working, I am enjoying some time off in the mountains of North Carolina writing and resting before moving to Atlanta to continue my journey. This post is a little late, considering I left Boston almost a week and a half ago, and have since worked in New York City, but I have been taking notes, and will spend this week catching up. Most of the events written here happened in Boston from February 14th-20th.
“I didn’t study anthropology, psychology, sociology, or any other -ology that would make me qualified to do this. I studied computer science, which, in my opinion, is the antithesis of those things.” This is my canned, light-hearted reply to those people who ask me about my merits for undertaking such a journey. In many ways, I feel that the fact makes me more suitable for this type of work. As opposed to seeing things from the standpoint of a doctor, I get the raw input.
This perspective is unique and useful, but, as I found in Boston, it is not very sustainable. Towards the end of my time in Chicago, all the way to the middle of my time in Boston, I was unable to separate myself from the struggles people were facing. Every day, I saw eyes devoid of any joy, hope, love, passion, or any other positive human emotion. I witnessed my first shelter fights in Boston. On Wednesday during breakfast, two men in their thirties got into it. One rammed the other into a column in the breakfast area, but it was quickly defused by security. Later that day, an elderly man and woman started pushing and screaming at each other. This was definitely not the communal environment in which I had been immersed in Chicago.
By Wednesday night, disillusionment with my work and the work of the shelters set in. I had been living in an environment, contrary to the rest of my life, that lacked any real sense of love and belonging. When volunteering in the past, it was for short stints. I could very easily separate myself from my work. Now that I was living it, it became impossible. To keep my mind off of it, I tried to mix things up. After working in the shelter, I would walk around Boston touring the historical sites (something that I enjoy when I travel). Getting my mind off of my work seemed to be the best thing to do. It didn’t help. The Old State House, Faneuil Hall, and the Christian Science Temple all seemed melancholy.
It wasn’t just my inexperience that brought these emotions, as I found, it was largely attributed to my solitude. For once in my life, I felt alone. Every time I went to a new city, I had to rebuild myself. New people, new faces, new names, new problems. All transient people; people with whom I would never be able to have meaningful relationships, due to the brevity of my stay.
I tried to discuss the things that I saw with friends and family, but I felt that they didn’t, and couldn’t, understand. They were not experiencing the poverty that I was. They were not seeing the poor mental health as I had. They were not witnessing humans expressing a survivalist mind set. I was not only physically alone, but mentally and spiritually on an island, cut off from the ones I love by the rough waters of destitution.
My original idea was to get the rawest perspective possible, but I have found this is unsustainable. One must take time off, and surround themselves with a support group, loved ones, or those who can give solid advice. If I wish to continue at the rate I have set for myself, I must be better about expressing how the trips make me feel and talk through the things I have seen with the ones I love. While I cannot go back and get a degree in something that allows me to understand people better, next time I undertake such an endeavor, I’m going to bring someone with me.
I have made it through this rough patch. After receiving so much love and encouragement from friends and family, it is hard for me to doubt that I am, or was ever, alone. While I was in New York City, I was able to talk about my experiences with the lead pastor at the Bowery Mission, one who lives my lifestyle every day. His encouragement and wisdom have helped me approach the problems that I see with fearlessness and empathy. I hope to continue down this path in the coming two months.
In closing, here is an experience that really stuck with me. After finishing at the shelter in Boston one day, I was walking around Cambridge, MA, and saw a girl my age panhandling. My whole life I have had a strong work ethic, but I was quickly losing this drive as time went on in Boston. As my perceived isolation and mental state worsened, survivalism became more appealing. How long would it take until I was panhandling like this girl? Weeks? Months? Was this girl “just lazy” or did she feel a heightened sense of I what did? To quote Mother Teresa, “Loneliness and the feeling that nobody needs you is the worst kind of poverty.”
So I just finished a long, but productive, week in Chicago. I arrived on Friday, February 5, and started my journey to Boston Saturday, February 13. I spent seven, eight-hour days at the Cornerstone Community Outreach center in Chicago, helping with lunch and dinner prep, food serving, dishes, painting, furniture moving, and a slew of other odd jobs. Needless to say, the work compounded with my two day drive has left me exhausted! Due to President’s Day, the shelter in Boston where I will be working is closed to volunteers, so I get a day to recuperate, get caught up on writing, and take care of some dirty laundry.
I am now in Boston staying with a friend from college who was kind enough to open up his living room to me for the week. It is cold here, but the temperature is supposed to move into the 40s and 50s tomorrow. Anyway, here are some things I learned in Chicago…
“I could make more money working somewhere else, but here I’m giving back. Everyone needs to give back.” One of the cooks I worked with, Raphael (middle-right in picture, holding up peace sign), said this. This was the mentality of everyone who worked or volunteered at the center. Though CCO only has three full-time cooks on hand, I worked with seven other full/part-time volunteers, five of whom receive services through the men’s and women’s shelters.
This wasn’t just the case in the kitchen. The cleaning was handled by full-time volunteers, food shipments were unloaded by men who lived in the shelter, and security was handled the same way. These people are not forced to do it; they wanted to. There was a strong sense of community, joy, and laughter that permeated their actions. This was a chance to have stronger relationships with each other, and the CCO community. Though many of them were out of a job, they are not out of work.
One of the questions I have been asking myself throughout my entire trip is “why?” Why would someone want to subject themselves to sleeping in a gymnasium, meals at a kitchen, and standing in the cold all day? Granted, one could very easily point to the deeper issues that exist within the lives of many of these people: drug addiction, mental illness (by the way, the state of Illinois has been closing public mental health institutions in the past three decades), alcoholism, broken homes, abusive spouses, etcetera, but I believe there is something more here.
One of the clients I talked to told me he had full-time employment, money in the bank, and could easily afford an apartment, but still chose to stay at the men’s shelter and receive services at CCO. He said that he is afraid, afraid that if he moves away from the shelter, support groups, and men and women who understand him and his predicament, he will fall back into alcoholism. This is the case for other clients at CCO too; the fear of entering into the unknown, falling in with the wrong crowd, and finding themselves on square one once more.
Building off of the “Realms of Safety” idea, it is common for people that have been in a shelter long term to have difficulty integrating back into “normal” life. Ed (from my previous entry) told me that there have been many times where a client has had a job and the keys to an apartment in his/her hand, and quickly found him/herself back in the shelter. Though I think this partly has to do with leaving a safe environment, one of the men I worked with shed an interesting perspective on the issue.
He was an ex-heroin addict, five years clean, but still homeless and trying to transition back into normal life. Though he has proven that he has radically changed his life, he said that a lot of his family still doesn’t trust him. Even if he wanted to integrate back into normal life, it would require the help and support of his family, which in many ways he does not have. If we apply this thought to any of the clients at CCO, even if they clean up their act, get a job and home, and try to readjust to “normal” life, they are the outsider, who is potentially being rejected by those supposedly closest to them. All the authentic connections they had were at the shelter and still remain there, where they are not the “other”.
One last note… I was talking to a friend while in Chicago, and she said that while I may not be able to relate to the problems experienced by the people at the shelter (drug addiction, alcoholism, etcetera), I can relate to the emotions that caused them. This really wrapped up a lot of loose ends in my thinking. I had realized that the general population, myself included, is not fundamentally different from those I worked with on a daily basis. When I took the “L” train to work every day, I saw the same blank, scared, anxious faces that I did on the people eating at the shelter. Though our emotions may express themselves in different ways, I workout when I get stressed as opposed to going for the bottle, we still experience the world in the same way and have similar fears. Once we begin to realize that we are no different from those in the lowest parts of society, I no longer see another person in a shelter; I see myself, family, friends, and others whom I hold dear.
Ed [EDIT: 06/02/2019 last name redacted] is the head cook at the Cornerstone Community Outreach. Though he was not in the kitchen with me over the weekend, I have spent the past few days getting to know him. He is a down-to-earth man with a good sense of humor and a good heart. Ed went to culinary school, and worked a number of food industry jobs before coming to CCO 8 years ago. He feels that his work here is more meaningful, hands on, and rewarding than a normal chef job.
We somehow got on to the topic of good pieces of advice, and he told me one that stuck with him, even to that day. When he was applying for a manager role for a restaurant in the Chicago area, he had a day where he shadowed the chain’s general manager. At one of the stores they visited, the GM saw one of the toilets was dirty, so he grabbed the supplies and started cleaning. For Ed, it was amazing to see a person of this position doing a job that is usually reserved for the low person in the pecking order. He told me it is the “pick up the cup” mentality. If you see something that needs to be done, do it, otherwise somebody else will have to do it for you.
Shouldn’t this be our mindset when we do mission work? Many times, even in my trip, I have seen volunteers acquire a “praise me for my work” attitude while they perform their tasks. “I’m giving my time and labor to take care of something, all I want is a little thank you. I don’t have to be here.” If that is the mindset for approaching mission or volunteer work, one should not be doing the work in the first place. I fell in to this trap the first time I went on a mission trip in high school, and probably every other time I’ve done volunteer work since then.
When dealing with those that may already be at the lowest of their low, why should we have them praise us for coming in? Why should we be put on a pedestal? The correct mindset should be the following:
“I’m doing the [dishes | cooking | cleaning | mopping | etcetera], because it needs to be done.”
Meet Steve.
Steve [EDIT: 06/02/2019 last name redacted] is an agreeable man from Pine Bluff, Arkansas, but has lived in Chicago most of his life. “It’s true what they say,” Steve says, “you can the boy out of the South, but you can’t take the South out of the boy.” He is one of the cooks at the Cornerstone Community Outreach, where he works 6am to 6pm on the weekends, and does breakfast and lunch shifts during the week.
Everyone at CCO loves Steve. While we work in the kitchen together, it’s not uncommon to hear a voice call from outside, beckoning Steve to a hug. The man gets hugs all day. His word is also respected as the final say for what goes on in our domain. “Steve, where should we put this donated chicken? Steve, what do we need to prepare now? Steve, is there any place that I can help out?” Steve is quick on his feet, a mean cook, takes pride in food presentation, and could be the poster child for “let’s see what we can make out of what they gave us.”
When you get to know Steve a little better, he starts to talk about his writing. He started writing about women’s fashion to earn a little extra cash, but has since moved on to writing poetry and is currently working on a novel. He loves it as an outlet to express himself, his views, and his experiences.
He has given me permission to post one of his poems today. On top of all the things I said about Steve, he receives services from the men’s shelter, and has been in and out of homelessness. This poem is about that struggle.
Steven [EDIT: 06/02/2019 last name redacted]
From depths of eternal nothingness
my soul yearns–no–screams, for safe abode.
My ego mind dominates my life
and battles with my soul,
A battle which creates my destiny’s fate.
To suffer the fate of The Tower.
That card of Tarot that will turn your life upside down.
The Tower calls my name and once again, I must endure
this raging storm where
howling winds are voices of my past.
“You are worthless, incorrigible.”
are statements that echo in my mind.
As the raging sea assaults the towering walls
of this body, that my soul claims refuge;
the menacing attacks of the sea awakens
the monsters of my deep subconscious.
Monsters that have been dormant within my inner being .
Monsters that answers to the name of fear and loneliness.
When suddenly, karmic lightning strikes my tower and
sets ablaze my once safe abode.
With my ego threatened, I have no choice but
to cast myself from heights thereof
and fall into the raging storm of uncertainty.
To face joblessness, homelessness, and
banishment from family and friends.
Inebriation seems so inviting,
but this storm offers spiritual guidance
in its precipitation. To this I must cling.
For Jesus, Lord and Saviour
will bring the Sun to illuminate my path.
Whereas the soul battled with the ego
It finds peace with my divine right mind
where my soul now claims refuge.
To bring Love and Joy to this age old body
and learn empowerment through the
through the creativity of my soul.
How wretched it is to trod the path of the fool.
Hello friends!
Over the next week I will be working at the Cornerstone Community Outreach in Chicago. I will be working most days during the day, so if you try to contact me, I may be slow to respond.
I was snowed in the past couple of days, so I worked locally to cut down driving time on poor road conditions . Such is life living in the upper Midwest!
While at the Salvation Army, I worked in the back of the food pantry restocking shelves for their tri-monthly evening food drive. On the night I was there, I worked with the Sheboygan county branch of Altrusa. The men and women in the group volunteered to work the food drive two nights a month. Though their impact is huge (they serve over 100 families each night), the time commitment for this activity for the entire month is about 4 hours, and is something of a social activity for them. This shows once again that you don’t have to set aside 3 months, like myself, to make a big difference in the community :).
People have preferences. Everybody has a favorite type of meat, bread, vegetable, cereal, etcetera. For some reason we act like those that receive food from pantries or from food stamps do not. Many times at food drives, food pantries, or other charitable organizations we see limited variety, or a “one size fits all” bag of food and essentials for families. The old adage “beggars can’t be choosers” comes to mind for a lot of people, but this saying is not only wicked (it is wicked because it says “hey, I have done the bare minimum to help, and I don’t care about about your needs enough to see what you might want”), it is also very inefficient.
Imagine the following scenario.
Fruit? We have pears, peaches, apples, and bananas.
Meat? We have hamburger meat, sausage, breakfast links, and brats.
Grain? We have pasta, bread, and macaroni.
Take your pick.
Though a small thing, it has helped many food pantries cut down on waste, and gives a deeper sense of caring to the individual’s needs.
I will try to keep my updates short in order to be digestible. Additionally, I will try to be as accurate as possible when recounting my experiences.
The St. Benedict the Moore Community Meal staff was very welcoming to me. Though they have reoccurring volunteers week after week, I was immediately taken into the fold, and given a position to serve food and beverages for the guests that evening.
The dinner is headed by two brothers, Brother Rob and Brother Dave, two men who have made their life mission serving and ministering to the homeless. During our briefing session, Brother Dave shared the following statistics and information with me:
In order to protect her privacy, I am intentionally omitting the name of a volunteer that I met last night, but let’s call her Fran. All quotes I have tried to recall to the best of my memory.
Upon arriving at the community meal, Fran was the first person to greet me when I walked in the door. She was a small lady, even if not compared to my stature, but had a big heart. She asked me if I had any experience working the dinner shift, if I was with the organization that was volunteering that evening, and if I was Catholic. My answer to all of these questions was “no”, so she began telling me a little history about the center (which was inspired by the philosophy of Dorothy Day and the Catholic Worker Movement, both very interesting pieces of American history. I recommend reading about them) and her involvement throughout the years.
She told me of the guests that come every night, claiming that, “we are all one step away from homelessness.” She recounted that some of the people she has worked with over the years were university educated, had good jobs, and lost everything when they became sick. “When you rack up 70,000 dollars worth of medical bills, and find yourself away from work for over a month, you will soon find yourself without job and home.”
It would be an understatement to call Fran a volunteer. Though she does not work at St. Benedict Community Meal full-time, in her words, “I’ve been volunteering here once a week for 35 years… wait… no, it’s been 40 now.” Fran has made it a lifestyle choice to serve others. In the time I spent planning, figuring out where to help, and setting aside time to volunteer, Fran just does. I hope that after my experience is over, I have even half of the heart of Fran.
Tomorrow begins what will hopefully be the biggest journey of my lifetime, and I am starting close to home… Milwaukee, WI.
I will be working at St. Ben’s Community Meal of Capuchin Community Service.
Please pray for my safety as I start my journey.