Day 2 Hope Community Fethke
Today at Hope Community, we set up snacks and crafts for the kids and their moms. We had pipe cleaners, stickers, crayons and coloring books set out for the kids to use. When no one came at 9:00 like we had planned, the workers asked us to knock on the apartment doors to wake up people and get them to join us. We also gave out "Hope Money" to those who joined us for crafts. We hoped for a better outcome, but only two women and their children came, and later another woman came alone because her daughter was in school (she took some coloring pages home for her daughter). We played with the kids and made things out of pipe cleaners, and the kids and moms really enjoyed using the stickers and coloring books. We had a lot of fun, and I really enjoyed seeing the joy on the children's faces when they were playing.
Something I have learned about homelessness is that people who are homeless need more than just money. At Hope yesterday, Felicia told us about how they try to help the women get job opportunities, graduate from college or highschool, get job skills they need, and everyday skills for living in an apartment on their own. Above all those things, the women need personal relationships to get encouragement and support. This is sort of like what the man from from the family we met on Monday was talking about. When he and his wife were homeless, what got them through it was the love and support they had together, and from the people who had helped them. This is what is most important, treating homeless people like normal people--because they are!