Josh: Service-Learning Log 2--Denver Rescue Mission

Still exhilarated from my experience at Project Homeless Connect, I went to the Denver Rescue Mission several days after for my second service learning experience. With my expectations high from what I had seen at PHC, I would have to say that this experience left me with much different feelings about volunteering.

Arriving at the DRM it is impossible to miss the park full of homeless persons that seem to have taken over the few blocks that surround the building. Immediately, I am saddened to see that these people are not like ones I had seen for the most part at PHC. The volunteer supervisor, Nick explains to me that many of those who are in that park day-to-day are heavily addicted to drugs and that it is a stop for police up to 5 times a day.

My shift, a pre-dinner slot meant that I would be helping to prepare that night’s meal. My first job: salad. Most of the ingredients used in their cooking are donated and therefore are not of the highest quality. Nick tells me, "If you wouldn’t eat it, don’t use it." As I looked around the frankly filthy stock room at the piles of bread vegetables I thought to myself, "There are a lot of things here I wouldn’t eat." I was given a box lettuce a cutting board and I Knife. There was no instruction to wash the vegetables or my hands, both seemingly essential commands to give a group of volunteers who had not worked in food service before. I washed the lettuce and began to cut it finding that many of leaves were no loner green but had become more of a black, rotten slime; I threw away much of the first box of lettuce. After going through two boxes of lettuce I had prepared enough for the meal and began my next task: Spork wrapping. Our job was simply to wrap the sporks in paper napkins that would later be used by the homeless as they came to eat. Not much to explain here. With these two jobs complete the time was up and I headed back to campus this time far more disappointed than I had been leaving PHC6.

As I alluded to earlier, to general state of the mission was unsettling. The prep areas and kitchen were nowhere near the normal of standard required in the food service industry. The dirty floor in one corner was covered in bags of bread that had been apparently thrown into the area with enough force to rip open some of the bags which led to unwrapped dinner rolls all over the floor. The un-maintained yet large source of food contributed to what appeared to be a significant rodent problem as on my two hour shift, I saw several mice scurry across the floor.

Seeing these things upset me greatly. Yes this was a shelter. Yes those who used it got the food for free. But does that mean that the standard of hygiene should be as neglected as it was there? It angered me to see that none of the supervisors were really concerned with that state of the kitchen. I felt bad for the people who had no other choice but to eat this food in order to survive. I think that even a few small changes were made, and stricter care for kitchen area were taken then the quality of the services offered to those who use the shelter could be exponentially improved. For the first time in my life, I left this experience dissatisfied in my volunteer work. Feeling as if with the lack of care that existed there, my work meant almost nothing.