For my service event this semester, a small group of IA members and I trekked trough the cold to volunteer at Star House. Star house is an organization that aims to help homeless youth, ages 14-24, in the Columbus community. They offer many different services twenty-four hours a day. Star House is considered a walk-in shelter because they do not allow people to lie down and sleep, but people may sleep as long as they remain upright. Youth who use the shelter has access to laundry, a kitchen, a warm place to escape the cold or dangerous people in their lives, and also receive different resources that they would not usually have access to, like toiletries and clothes. Our IA group worked on sorting clothes in their warehouse. We were responsible for making sure the clothes in the bins were neatly organized, sorting the right type of clothes were in the correct bins, and removing access clothing in order to send in to the free store. Another scholar group that were at Star House the same morning worked on picking up trash around the building and surrounding buildings. The outreach person explained to us that Star House has a “good neighbor” agreement with their neighbors. This basically means that Star House will make sure the youth does not loiter on the neighboring buildings’ yards, and that they also will pick up any trash and make sure everyone’s yard looks good and, well, not trashy. My experience with Star House was really good. I enjoyed volunteering for them and helping them out, especially since they help out so many youth in Columbus. Their work is really inspiring, and they continue to help “Star House Graduates” (basically those who have aged out of the program) with health consultant resources, jobs resources, and so many other opportunities that these people might not have if Star House did not exist. If the resources and opportunities were available, I would hope that Star House would expand and seek other locations around Columbus to add branches to their shelter. Columbus has so many suburbs and subgroups that having only one Star House would not be able to help all homeless youth around Columbus. Maybe in the future, the owner of Star House could maybe consider setting up one star House on each side of the metropolis that is Columbus, having four locations: north, south, east, and west Columbus. This organization helps to give opportunities to those who might not have had a chance otherwise, and I feel that this idea is something that should be expanded across Columbus and hopefully across the state in the future. With being at the university 24/7, it is easy to forget that there is a world outside of Ohio State; therefore it is beneficial to volunteer for organizations like this that do such incredible work for the youth and people of Columbus, and to think about how large issues, like homelessness, could be helped or even solved in the future.