Kelsey -- Service Learning Log 2

For Project Homeless Connect, there was a lot of anticipation building up to the event. The first announcement that I would be participating came at the beginning of the quarter in class. I really had no idea what to expect from the experience at that point. However, little-by-little different aspects of the project and informational sessions were provided to us in order to help us understand what we’d be doing. The last big step we had to complete before working the event was to attend a meeting for instructional purposes. We were handed a large folder with many pieces of paper and overwhelmed with what to do, how to do it, and what others had experienced. Each new piece of information helped me understand what I would be doing a little better, but nothing calmed my nerves.

The morning of, I arrived outside the Ritchie Center at 8 a.m. where I was met by a mass of others in orange-yellow volunteer shirts. I picked up a clip board with the client information sheet I was in charge of filling out by the end of my client’s visit and stood in line, waiting to be paired. A woman in a red shirt came to the line and announced that she needed someone who didn’t have a client yet. I volunteered and was led inside to the breakfast tables, where a classmate sat with two hispanic women who were eating muffins and fruit. I was introduced to the young woman who would be my client, Eunice, and started talking to her about what she needed. Eunice informed me that she wanted to make her visit quick, as she was supposed to be at school later to turn in an assignment. I asked here where she would like to visit and also started talking to her about what she was going to school for. First, she wanted to visit legal services and medical and informed me she wants to me a cook in a restaurant so she is in school now, very close to graduating. She also informed me she didn’t need to visit the housing area because she had just applied for housing and was expecting to hear back from them that very day and that she would not need to go to the ID area because she has all her documentation. We left her friend, who went with my classmate to get other services taken care of, and went over to the legal services desk where we only had to wait a minute to be seen. Eunice talked to the women there about a warrant she has for her because she was pulled over in a friends car that had no license and no insurance. She had lost the documentation informing her when her court date was, so she got a warrant for failure to appear. She got her affairs straightened out with legal services, and next we went get her hair cut. After getting her hair cut, we attempted to check her vision, but the medical area was a mess and we did not get anything accomplished there. We then went to child support where she talked about her six children with the woman providing services and who was taking care of them now and what she had to do to make sure child support knew where they were, since they had moved locations. We then went over to lunch, where the two friends met up and talked about how good the sandwiches were and how awful their living situation is now. Eunice told me about her children, her ex-boyfriend, and how she ended up homeless for the first time, pregnant and alone. We then went over and Eunice got a special massage for pregnant women, which she enjoyed a lot. After worrying about school all day, she finally decided to take the day to herself and get the most out of the services we had to offer. We next went over to drug and alcohol counseling where she talked to the man about signing up for classes for alcohol abuse to make sure she was doing everything right in order to get her children back. At the end of the day I walked Eunice and her friend to the bus stop, where they got on and traveled back to their shelter.

The experience, overall, was great. I had been so nervous for what the day would be like that I was pleasantly surprised when it all worked out well. Eunice was smart and hard working and really had everything put together well. If it had not been for her split from her boyfriend, she would not have lost her six children and would not be struggling alone in a shelter to make it back to the lifestyle she respects. She was happy and helpful and great to talk to and help out. Her and her friend were always smiling, joking, and laughing which was surprising and good to see. They helped me realize that if even people in their position could be so cheerful, what do I have to be anything by cheerful about? Everyone I met that day was helpful and really great to work with and made me realize that I had horrible misconceptions about how the homeless are, overall.