Joe's service learning logs

Denver Rescue Mission

Two days ago Josh and I went down to the Denver Rescue Mission to volunteer at the 4:30pm to 6pm shift. This is the shift right before dinner so we were there to help prepare food. First we were set to work preparing salad, by chopping up lettuce, olives and tomatoes. This was a pretty easy job and the food looked pretty decent. We only had to throw out a bit of lettuce that was old. After preparing the salad, our boss for the night, Nick, had me help out by taking donated hotdog buns out of bags and place them in a giant container. These were not in as good of shape. The bread as I learned from Nick, is donated by grocery stores to the Denver Rescue Mission just before they would throw it out themselves. This means the shelter has only a couple days to use the bread before it goes bad. I definitely had to throw away my fair share of hotdog buns before I was done and most of the ones I put in the bin were pretty hard already, but did not quite have mold yet. If I were given one of these hotdog buns I would probably try and find a fresher one, they were definitely not ideal.
After cooking and unpacking food for the first half of the shift Josh and I went on to the extremely difficult task of rolling sporks for the rest of our time there. That is no lie, for the next 45 minutes we took paper napkins and rolled them up with a spork inside. This was definitely a very helpful thing to do so the people who actually work there do not have to waste their time with the simple task and can help out the homeless people at the shelter better. However, after years of volunteering in many different places in my life, I am not sure I have ever done anything in my life that made time go by more slowly than sitting there rolling sporks for 45 minutes. By the end of that I was just about ready to die.
In the end I think it was definitely a very good thing to do going down to the shelter and helping out. They definitely rely on volunteers for the majority of the labor there and it definitely helps the homeless people in the area immensely. The facilities and food were definitely not of the top grade, but they did not seem nearly as bad as I had anticipated from the accounts of other students in our class who went before me. Unfortunately, this event did not have anywhere near the emotional impact that PHC6 did on me. While what I was doing was helpful, I did not have any interaction with homeless individuals while I was working there. The only real impact it had on me was that simple monotonous tasks can in fact be very helpful even though they do not feel like it at the time.

Project Homeless Connect

Going into PHC6 I really had no idea what to expect. “How helpful are the services going to be?” and “What will my homeless person/s be like?” were the main questions running through my head. The man I got to lead around was named Richard. He is currently 50 years old and has been out of work for about a year now, but not for drugs, alcohol or a mental disability. Richard was hard-working and had a good job, but has Parkinson’s disease that forced him to quit working. He is currently waiting on social security to start sending him checks, which should be around $2000 a month, easily enough to live on with his wife. However, for now he is living on $238 a month, not an easy task.
Going in I thought the services would be far more helpful than they were. The homeless people could not get housing or a job, just paperwork. Nor could they get real medical attention, just referrals. Richard knew it would be like this thankfully, so when he was not able to get medication or a real dental exam, he was not too disappointed. All they did was tell him where he needs to go to get the attention, which he already knew. We then went and talked to housing, but with his current income he cannot get anything more than a studio apartment, but once his social security checks start coming he will be fine to get a little bigger apartment. They tried to have us talk to people who run other shelters, but Richard said he was content with the one he stays at and just needs his own place. Other than that all we could really do was eat and talk, which was fine for him. He wished there had been a better breakfast, perhaps bacon, eggs, or pancakes, but he was very happy with the sandwiches for lunch. This was probably because they are much fresher than the ones at the shelter. I had not volunteered at Denver Rescue mission at this point, but after seeing the state of the bread down there, the sandwiches at PHC6 were definitely of better quality.
After lunch I left Richard with a couple of his friends and he was very thankful that he was able to get simple things like food, toothpaste, shampoo and a couple of t-shirts, which was extremely relieving to me because we were not able to get him any medical or housing help that morning.
For me personally the event made me realize even more how lucky I am. I have always thought that I do not take anything I have for granted and realize how blessed I am to have a good family around me. After spending the morning with Richard, I was in shock. The amount of depressing stories he has from his life, the ones I cannot even share, are so sad they may have made some people cry.
I do not know if it is possible, but my biggest criticism of PHC6 is that all the people working there can really do is give out paperwork. I heard a lot of stories about people who had a homeless person looking for a job and all they could get were a couple of applications. The same thing went for medical and housing, all that could be done was give out paperwork. If it is possible, it would drastically improve PHC if they could make things happen here on that day.