And Our Service Continues..

Today was the second day volunteering at the St. James Food Pantry. Yesterday, we got everything set up to give out groceries to people for today. This morning, until 11:30, people in need around the Chicago area came in to get food for their families or, if they did not have a family, just themselves. Each of us in the group had a different job during this time. I was a distributor, meaning that the clients brought me a small piece of paper with a number determining how many and what type of grocery bags they got. Some of these papers also contained other items that they got including diapers or dental packs for their kids. I loved getting to work with the clients one-on-one. I got to directly see what we were working for.

A reason why poverty is such an important thing for me to help with is because it hits close to home. When I was about 14 my dad lost his wife, job, home, and car within a few months. He quickly went from having his family with a secure income to having absolutely nothing. Because this was right after a rough divorce, I was not seeing my dad even though he was in Springfield. I didn’t find out for a while that he was even homeless. He avoided the topic constantly. I wish every day that I would have been able to help him during that hard time. Over the past few years my dad has been able to get himself out of poverty and has started to tell me small details about being on the streets. This helped me to relate to the clients that I got to meet today. The main thing my dad has explained is how embarrassed he was. He did not want other people to know he was homeless, especially people that he knew in Springfield. He constantly avoided asking anyone for help. Because of this, I tried to make the people that I met today as comfortable as possible and just tried to make them smile. The one struggle that I had was communication. Over 80 percent of the people that came in were Asian and spoke very little English. Even with this being, I felt very happy about everything that got done and the great amount of work that St. James Food Pantry does for their community. This Chicago trip has definitely taught me even more about the poverty that people deal with every day. It also has taught me about the importance of working together. Our group is absolutely great and we all have our part in being here with loads of different personality. I am so glad I chose to spend my spring break with these fellow bears.

-Brittany Vallez