I gave the following assignment to my class awhile back. I received an unexpected reaction to the assignment. I first describe the project and follow it with the student’s reaction. Her reaction was voluntary and I left it unedited so as to keep her tone and spirit authentic.

social & political philosophy

learning team project 

Each learning team will report for 20 - 25 minutes in class 5 on a major Service Project that is described below.

This project must conform to the following criteria:

Ø  Your learning team will provide a service to an agency such as a United Way Agency, a homeless shelter, a nursing home, a group home, or any other non-profit agency. The service should not be to a for-profit agency.

Ø  The service must be direct examples are: serving meals in a homeless shelter, reading to a nursing home resident, tutoring, etc.

Ø  This service must be as a volunteer; there should be no remuneration except for coffee or other incidentals. 

Questions to consider for your report:

Ø  What assumptions, beliefs, and attitudes does our society hold about the people receiving your services?

Ø  Where do these assumptions come from?

Ø  Are these assumptions valid?

 Ø  Are there alternative beliefs that can be held about these people?

Ø  How can these assumptions be changed?

Below is the student’s reaction: 

Volunteer

One who chooses freely to do something…

As I looked over the coming assignments for my new class, Social and Political Philosophy, I found it funny that I would have to “volunteer,” now how can I do something “freely” when  the fact is if I don’t do this assignment I would not have completed the “required” tasks which would then cause me to fail this class? I guess that is one to think about.

I sat down to think about this project and with much thought to what I would like to do and where I would get the most out of my volunteering experience I started making phone calls, call after call seemed to connect me with answering machines requesting I leave my name and number and they would call me back as soon as possible. Unfortunately I, as well as my work study group, was under a time restriction. We finally did receive a few phone calls, one of them being from Habitat for Humanity, which we immediately set up, our job would be to help build a home for someone on the upcoming Saturday morning. This seemed ;like a nice thing to do, help supply someone with a home to live in, we all need a place to live and call our own; the unfortunate [art was that we wouldn’t get to meet the person or persons that we were doing this for, but it would fulfill our obligation for volunteering. So it was all set, this is what we would do, that was until we received another phone call, this one from the Thomas Merton Center, and they were in need of volunteer for their Soup Kitchen. Perfect, this way we could actually have some hands on with the people we would be helping.

I signed up for the first thing Monday Morning, I just wanted to get this assignment done I have limited time so the sooner the better for me. I, anal as I am, arrived early, just to make sure I didn’t get stuck in traffic or get lost. So here it was 7:00am and I am sitting in front of this old church in downtown Bridgeport. No problem it’s quite and my assignment doesn’t start until, 8:00am, so if figured I would just sit there and get some of my reading done for class out of the way. Well I must have been so mesmerized or so confused (and I’ll go with the confused) by the reading that I didn’t notice that people were starting to gather around the front of the church. Well, well, well this was a little bit more intimidating than I thought it would be, there were several African America men pacing back and forth, some talking to themselves while pothers smoked their cigarettes. One young white man, who looked like he had had a rough night stood on the front porch of the house I was parked right in front of. As he pulled out a cigarette I found I slid my elbow slowly across the car door and nonchalantly locked it.  Oh boy what did I get myself into? I was not getting out of this car to walk into that church until Vickie got here, no way no how. By the heck where was she, I could get robbed, beaten, or even kidnapped!

Finally, I see her car coming down the street and right away I started to feel brave again. I emerge form the safety of my car and turn around to walk to meet her and found that I was eye to eye with a very scruffy Puerto Rican man, oh this can’t be good. Then in the softest voice he tells me that I can park in the church parking lot “that is where all the volunteers park”. I felt like such a fool, I never considered myself judgmental but I guess I was. I assumed that because these people looked different that they could harm me when in reality they didn’t care anything about me they just wanted to go inside and have something to eat. I wondered how he knew I was there to volunteer, I wasn’t all dressed up I made sure that when I dressed that morning I put on old jeans a sweat shirt and sneakers, how did he know, did he sense I wasn’t hungry or homeless did he see the fear in m y eyes, I guess I will never know. What I do know is that he, as weird as this may sound, made me feel comfortable.

Once inside I introduced myself to all the other volunteers and asked what it was that I could do, they immediate put me to work chopping parsley and onions. I proceeded to take the parsley leaves off the stalk and chop them putting them stalks into the pile of scrapes for the garbage. Cathy, one of the regular volunteers, told me to chop the stalks as well as they would add those tom the soup she also told me that they use everything and that they don’t waste or throw anything away. Then I was assigned to make the soup; yes I was making the soup for the soup kitchen. I thought this was very ironic because if you ask anyone that I know they will tell you that I don’t know how to cook! So far that day had been very interesting things were not the way I thought they were the people, my cooking, and I was enjoying myself, this was no longer an assignment that I had to do but one that I was actually having fun with.

I spoke with several volunteers there asking what made them get involved in the soup kitchen, how long they had been doing it, and did they get anything out of it. All the answers were very similar, some were school projects, some people had extra time on their hands and wanted to give something back, all said they felt good about helping others less fortunate and that they had made friends with the other volunteers as well as the people that came there to eat. As for the people that came to the soup kitchen, I was surprised to see the number of people that showed up for this one facility, there were about 70 people their for breakfast and they expected about 100+ for lunch (no dinners served there). Of course this was the beginning of the month o the numbers were down because people had just received their checks but by the end of the month when people were running out of money the numbers would increase to double what they were today.

As the people filed through the doors I saw what I expected, old men whom drank to much, wearing dirty stained cloths, but then as they continued in I noticed there were young men and young women, there was a baby, blondes, brunettes, bald men working men, people who were just down on their luck. I wondered if they were embarrassed, I know I was , not for them but for the fact that I was cooking them food that I would not have used if I were cooking for myself or someone coming to my home, I was embarrassed for me. Am I part of the problem that allows the hungry to continue? I found I didn’t like volunteering anymore.

As the day went on I decided to help the dishwasher with the dishes. This way I was actually able to talk to some of the people that ate there. It was funny several of the men hit on me, some told me they had just come from work (the working poor), some told jokes, but they all made me feel comfortable. I had to ask myself who was helping who here.

I volunteered several more times and learned that it cost close to $900,000.00 a year to run the Thomas Merton Center. Some of this come from grants and some from fema but most of the $900,000.00 and food comes from donations. I left a donation, not much, but I wanted to help in anyway I could. It made me wonder who was responsible to make sure the hungry were fed. The Government, the towns these people live in, their churches their children’s schools. Do they/we need to be educated and open for suggestions to help? Should a certain percentage of land in the state or in each town be allocated to grow food for when emergencies arise? But then comes all the questions, who should work the land, how will or should they be paid or should they all be volunteers and who would reap the benefits? We need to think of the future with its growing population the decrease in food and water. Whose responsibility is it, it’s mine, and it’s yours it’s everyone’s!

After my “assigned volunteering” was completed I thought back about what the others volunteers had said of their experiences and how they felt they had become a better person because of volunteering there and that it made them feel more fulfilled. Did I walk away a better person? No I didn’t but I did walk away more humble, disgusted with what I saw, sad, educated and determined. I have decided to continue tom help feed them hungry and to be more supportive to this cause. It’s funny before I went to the soup kitchen I didn’t think much about it I just assumed that the only people that went there were old drunk men that really couldn’t do anything for themselves, well that’s not it at all there were, the truth is all types of people walked through those doors and none of them choose to live like this, something just happened along the way and it could happen to anyone of us. So when someone talks to me about the poor and the hungry and they make that stupid statement “it is what it is” I will know the truth that “that it is what we allow it to be”.