Today me and Jesse helped out by cutting apples to make some apple crisp. We did this most of the time. After we finished we helped Madddie and Yazmine sweep and mop the floor. The cook was making soup and she gave me some . Shes so nice :). It was a good day.
I have been helping out at Hope Community every morning from 8:30 to 10:30 every school day since last week Tuesday. I have babysat awesome kids, moved boxes, and cooked for the residents at Hope. I think something kind of amazing that I realized today was that when I am there, it doesn't feel like service. It doesn't feel like I'm volunteering or working, it feels like I am now a part of their community. I guess what I am trying to say is that usually when I do service work it actually feels like work and that I sometimes treat it like I am better than the people I am helping. The winterim course has changed my view on service, and some of the things I have learned about the homeless have helped me at Hope. At Hope, I don't feel better than the residents. I feel like I am their friend and they are mine. I also feel very grateful for what I have there, and, like I said, blessed.
When I signed up for this class I expected mostly hands-on stuff, like playing with little kids, talking to homeless people, making meals, or anything like that. But the first few days at Family Promise we sorted their donation room. Then, we brought mattresses to and from churches and storage rooms. After that, we copied papers and put them in folders. But now that we're pretty much all done, I wouldn't trade my experience there for anything. There were times when we could play with the kids, and we did make a meal for the families, just not as much as I expected. Which is fine by me! I think something that most people don't realize is that most of the work you're going to do if you chose to live your life serving is behind the scenes work. Even though it may not seem like it, stuff like that sometimes helps even more than interacting with the people. I mean, yeah, playing with little kids and making like six boxes of macaroni is fun, but having fun isn't the point of serving. It's just an added benefit. And I don't even think we did the hardest work there! People are there everyday doing things like typing up papers, cleaning the donation room, transporting donations back and forth from different shelters, etc. Help is help.
One of the things I particularly enjoyed about this class was volunteering in the morning. My placement was one of the places where we didn't get a lot interaction with the residents, but that didn't bother me that much. We did a lot of cleaning and organizing, and at first it really bothered me, but as the week went on they told us about how thankful they were for us and how they were really grateful for us coming and doing the things that needed to get done. When they said those things it made me feel better about doing the things I didn't want to do. I also really enjoyed getting to know the girls in my group and making new friends. Overall my morning experience was a pretty good one, because I was able to help the organization even though we didn't get to meet a lot of the homeless people that lived there. It felt good to give them the help they needed.