Sorry to be a little late with my blogging but lateness seems to be the theme of my service projects. I had planned on going to Laurel Hill the first week but I unfortunately got mono and was unable to do that. I was fortunately was able to get to DC on wednesday of the second week. when I arrives off the train I met Dr. Gustave at the train station and from there we went to Epiphany Church for the YSOP dinner which was really awesome. I have had other experiences at soup kitchens but I have never gotten as much out of one as I got out of the YSOP dinner. It was really cool to be able to actually interact with the guests we were serving. I was surprised at how engaging everyone was and willing to talk to talk with us and how interesting they were to talk to. I think that it would be really cool if more soup kitchens operated with this model. The next day I joined the red group and went to Food and Friends which is an organization that prepares and delivers meals to people with illnesses that make it hard for them to do that for themselves. They had a really awesome kitchen and we had a lot of fun even though we were not interacting with the people we were serving in the same way as we had the night before. It was interesting to see a different part of what goes into serving a community. That afternoon we went to Community of Hope which is an organization that provided services for entire families which is unique. We worked with kids in their after school program. It was fun to meet the kids and see an entirely different face of homelessness than we had seen at the YSOP dinner.  I think that what struck me the most about this trip was seeing all these different ways that homelessness effects all different types of people. The next day we went to Nth street Village which is an organization that has many resources for homeless women. I was very impressed by the quality and cleanliness of their facilities. This also gave insights into another group of homeless people. Overall I was very pleasantly surprised at the impact this trip had on me in just two days.

-Ruthie

DC WEEK 1

Hey everyone!

okay this is going to sound very cliche, but i feel like my trip to dc changed who I am, and how i think about the world. It all started the moment we stepped off the train and into the city when i realized i felt like i was in the right place. The feeling continued throughout the week as many of the people who i was on the trip with know. The first day my group along with Gil's group went to Food for Friends which gives food to terminally ill people and their families. I thought that was the greatest place and was convinced there was not another place that could effect me like that. I was wrong. The place where i felt as though i did the most good was at Thrive DC. It was at Thrive where we cooked the food as well as served the food to all of their guests. I ended up going to Thrive twice, once with the whole group to serve dinner to a group of only women, and once with my small group early in the morning (we had to leave the hostel before 8) to make breakfast for a group of people, both men and women. The way that the head chef interacted with both us the volunteers, as well as the men and women we served amazed me. He made all of us feel like we were helping, and we all did something important to help get breakfast underway. And the way he interacted with the people we served, he knew them because many of them came back daily, and he interacted with them. Some people were frustrating and hard to please, but he knew exactly what to do when they came up.
After we went to Thrive that early morning, we went to an all women shelter. This is the place that effected me the most. The women were allowed to leave their belongings at the shelter. So some of the rooms were decorated like ours at home. There were family pictures, stuffed animals, Obama stuff galore, and Bibles in each room. Some rooms I could not even enter because they touched me so much. These people are not all drug addicts and crazies, these people are a lot like you and me, they are just down on their luck right now.

This trip made me think about how fragile our future is. In a matter of moments anyone could be living on the streets, without a job, without money.

--sarah h

When I decided to go on the Washington DC trip, I expected nothing more than a lincoln sponsored trip to the city with my friends. However, after my first day of work, my expectations changed. I realized that this trip was not about us but rather the people we were there to serve. My first morning I was paired with a phone buddy named Tesfaye, a terminally ill man who had been deported from his home country to Ethiopia and from there to America. He had practically no family in the area and seemed to just be looking for a friend. I talked to him on the phone for over an hour, about everything from the Lutheran church to the hippies and Dead Heads. At the YSOP dinner I was able to connect to a man named Gregg, who approached me to ask if we could play Connect Four. I was terrible and he made fun of me, but I had a great time. This trip gave me another perspective on community service. It allowed me to connect to the people I was serving on an emotional level and it made me care.

DC service trip week one

Two weeks ago, I was filled with excitement and anticipation as I prepared to go on the D.C. trip. My imagination ran wild and I had no idea what to expect. I imagined my room at the hostile was a large space filled with people sleeping on the floor in sleepingbags, and I imagined that we would interact with the homeless community everyday. However, when we finally arrived on Monday afternoon I found that my imaginations were far from the truth. The hostile was clean, cozy and nice rather than huge and unwelcoming and, to my dismay, we really didn't get to interact with the homeless community as much as I had anticipated. However, what we did do was even more self-satisfying and rewarding.
The first experience where I actually interacted with them was on Tuesday when we went to Christ House, an organization that cares for homeless individuals who are too sick/injured to live on the streets but not sick enough to be admitted into an hospital. Here, we met with two funny and intelligent men (unfortunately, I cannot remember their names!). One of them helped us label and stamp the letters and the other entertained Mrs. D with calculus problems and thus caused the rest of us to cringe and sigh with disgust! However, although I despise calculus, this experience was truely rewarding because it was the first time I actually engaged in a conversation with an homeless individual.
My most defining and rewarding experience took place two days later at the YSOP dinner. Here, we cooked, served and ate a meal with individuals from the homeless community. At first I was worried that the conversations would be awkward, but as I sat a table with two men (Joe and Phil) I found that I really connected with them and the conversation flowed easily. I don't think I will ever forget Joe and Phil, we talked about everything from school to sports to politics and we even shared our life stories! This was the experience I had dreamt about, except I never imagined it would be that much fun and rewarding!
Every part of the D.C. trip was so much fun! Mrs. Dichiaro was the best (euphemism for craziest!) chaperone ever and my red group (Sarah Stern& Fiona Taylor) kept her in line (just like we did in calculus). I am so grateful to the entire group of students that went with me because their positive energy motivated me to want to do more, and I am also grateful to our chaperones (Gil, Mrs. D, Sarah& Dr. Gustave--when he finally came!) for keeping us safe but still allowing us to have some freetime! Thanks, it was the best experience of my life!

Jonice Ward

I went on the second week of the Washington DC trip. It was truly a fantastic experience and am extremely happy that I went on it. Everything about the trip was eye-opening, which was the goal of our trip. The hostels were definitely not what I expected, they were better. I was very content with the way things turned out . The first day we were split up into groups and went off to our service spots.  My group and I went to “Bread for the City,” and it was a food pantry where people would come and get bagged food for them and their families. We were helpful and benefited the community. We were open to any job that anyone asked us to do. We left there feeling like we definitely made a difference and helped the homeless community. The second day of service was the Rachael’s Women Center. This was a bit more deceiving because the women were not at all pleasant and we didn’t get the feeling that they appreciated the work we were doing. We helped bag and organize clothes and accessories in the basement, painted doors, organized closets, picked weeds, helped serve food and picked up litter. Our third day of service consisted of going to Elder Buddies and Thrive DC. For  Elder Buddies we went to a woman’s apartment and helped her from being evicted. She was a hoarder, which is a disease of keeping everything and having clutter. We helped her clean and organize everything, there were 5 full garbage bags of stuff just from the kitchen and bedroom. That day of Thrive DC was not very rewarding we were supposed to help cook, however, we put a desk together because they were moving. The last day was probably my favorite day, we went to Thrive DC again. We helped prepare food and served it to 265 people. The time went by quick because we were focused and all busy on our own jobs-it was very efficient. I enjoyed myself very much on this trip and would definitely recommend it to underclassmen for their Senior project. I have a much different view of the world and homeless people in general. It is a good experience for anyone to go through. I feel like I was appreciated and know that I made a difference. It was overall awesome!