By Macon Allen Today was our third day volunteering in the bitterly cold Chicago, Illinois. We went to A Safe Haven and worked in their food pantry as a part of our direct service piece for our immersion trip. I’m always hearing about homelessness and seeing it portrayed in the media, but I never realized its full effect until this trip. We bagged fruits and vegetables in … [Read more...] about A Safe Haven – Chicago Bear Breaks
By Yoko Hoshino Today we got to volunteer at La Casa Norte which serves opportunities for youth and family to connect with housing. At first we helped cleaning one of their shelters. The shelter provides homeless beds and bathrooms There are also beds for babies, picture books, toys for kids. We all wiped and clean them up. Some of us helped cooking food served for homeless … [Read more...] about What We Don’t Realize in Our Lives
On Monday night in Atlanta, we served at the Central Night shelter. After visiting San Francisco two summers ago I had my own ideas of what homelessness looked like in large cities. I experienced people constantly asking for food or money and sometimes yelling and calling me out specifically. It was easy to become part of the crowd and ignore them. I knew there were also many … [Read more...] about Central Night Shelter- Logan Triplett
"Eat Well. Live Well. Be Well." This motto is that of Growing Places Indy, the site Bear Breaks Indy served with today. As a trip leader, and previous Indy participant, it was fun to come back to a place I've served at before and see the changes made and gain more out of the experience than I did initially. Growing Places Indy is a non-profit urban garden that specializes in … [Read more...] about Eat Well. Live Well. Be Well.
By Melody Staicoff Today our group went to serve at Growing Places Indy. This organization strives to bring farming into an urban setting, while also providing organic produce at an extremely reduced cost. They put us right to work dumping compost, planting beds of seeds, and learning about the sustainable practices that they follow. The things that I personally experienced … [Read more...] about Finding the Beauty in Indirect Service