Event: Volunteering at Van Buren Shelter
Location: Van Buren Shelter
Date: Monday, November 11th
Type of event: Service
This past Monday I took part in a service trip to the Van Buren Shelter. This trip was put on by Pay it Forward. Honestly, I don’t know what Pay it Forward is, but I’m fairly certain that they just offer volunteer opportunities. I found out about the trip because of my IA classmate Max. He sent the link about the opportunity in a group chat and I liked the sound of it, so I signed up!
I’m truly glad I went to the shelter. There, we spent our time working with eh soup kitchen. This is where the guests receive their meals. As volunteers, we first spent time cleaning and sanitizing before the guests were to show up. One kid made a comment about how you could tell which kids had held a job before (like at McDonald’s) and who hadn’t because some of the volunteers were not the best cleaners. I did my best at cleaning and once the guests were there I walked around the cafeteria and offered them cheddar sun chips. There were also garden salsa and original flavors, but my chips were the fan favorite. I was glad about this because it kept me busy and I got to interact with a lot of guests.
I was able to make these womens’ days. I was able to help provide them a basic right and necessity to life and seeing and hearing the gratitude from the ladies was awesome. Even though their situations may not have been the best, the majority of them were still kind and appreciative. I even got to have mini conversations with some of the ladies. This was important to me because putting faces to food insecurity problems makes them more real. Being in IA pushes me to find interactions like these and I think I am most thankful to IA for that. While it may have been a sad time to realize that not everyone has the opportunity to just eat whenever they want, I’m proud of myself to have taken even just a small part in this volunteer opportunity. I hope that more people throughout the university participate in opportunities like this not just because it feels good, but because people need to see these societal challenges first-hand and the guests at Van Buren benefit from our help.