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
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
Yesterday, we had the opportunity to learn about living in southern Louisiana from the perspective of those who live here. We took a tour of the Whitney Plantation, the previously flooded lower ninth ward, and uptown New Orleans. It was a very educational day, preparing us for the rest of the week to serve in the local community with a fresh, hopefully more empathetic … [Read more...] about Life, Labor, and Love – Lane Borsa