Day 4
I woke up today today with a tired body, yet energized heart. I was excited for what the day would hold!
After our morning devotion, we headed out to Bread and Life soup kitchen. Man, was this thing huge, organized, and efficient!!! There were several parts to it, the obvious one being the soup kitchen part where people can come and eat for free. Ross, Kyle, and myself were the dishwashers! We had the pruniest, nastiest hands afterwards. But I had a fun time getting to know them better :) Another aspect of Bread and Life was their pantry. Each person who joins B&L gets 400 points to their name a month. In this waiting room were a few computers where people can browse and select the food items they want. Once done, a receipt prints out in the back pantry where volunteers bag food accordingly. Apparently this is the first computerized food pantry in the country - so cool! Yet another component to B&L is their library, which enables people to get help finding housing, jobs, filling out applications, etc. B&L does a fantastic job in serving their community and NYC as a whole, and it was a pleasure to work with them!
After we finished, we stepped outside, and Ramona, our host, told us what we would be doing next. It was supposed to be somewhat of a "surprise," but as my mom and Sam have gone on CSM hosted trips before, I knew what was coming. Ramona told us to hand over all our money and snacks (except my emergency ones), and explained we were having an immersion experience. She gave Cody, the oldest, our sheet of instructions and $14 (money for dinner for us AND a homeless person) before she and Joe left us with no maps, money, or cell phones. The seven of us were to travel from where we were to the East side (I am hopeless with directions and placement so I was constantly lost in my mind) by subway. Then we were to complete certain tasks such as observing the different churches, going to a park, asking bystanders there about it's history, find out how much it would cost to rent/buy an apartment, etc. Can you believe that to rent a 2 bedroom condo there was 700k a month (according to the real estate agent. Maybe she meant year...)!?!?! Crazy. Anyways, after we did all of that, we tried to scout out some homeless people. In the 3-4 mile radius we walked, guess how many homeless people we saw. Give up???? TWO! Not as many as I thought there would be. Maybe it was just really cold that day... Anyways, we (and by we I mean Ross) went to one lady and asked if we could buy her dinner and eat with. She said no, she was waiting for someone. So we crossed the street to a man buried in blankets, and he said he just ate dinner. Nearly hopeless, we went back to the first lady and made a deal. We would bring her a hotdog if we could hear her story...thankfully she agreed! So we trudged to the nearest vendor and got 8 $1 hotdogs. We took them to her and we sat and ate as a group. It was quite humbling sitting on the dirty, cold, and busy streets of NY. But she talked, and we listened. Turns out she and her husband lived in New Orleans, and on we birthday Katrina hit. Now their house wasn't damaged too bad, but the police evacuated them and stuck them on a plane to TX. However, during their ride, plans shifted as TX was filled with evacuees. So they ended up in Raleigh, NC of all places (to which we all had a good laugh)! DeeDee and her husband were only there for 2 days though before they went up to NJ, where her family was. But, living with them didn't work out, and they had a friend in NYC who was willing to get them cheap rent. So they moved up there for a few months before their friend "screwed them over" and that's how she ended up on the streets. Her story had a few other bits in it, and it was really cool to take the time to stop and listen to the person people typically ignore. After telling her a little bit about us, we finished our food and said our goodbyes. With $6 left, we went to a little pizza place and each got a piece. They were huge, so we were filled up!
It took us around an hour to get back to the church in Brooklyn, and with aching feet we rested before Joe took us out for...that's right...PIZZA!! Haha :) We debriefed and off to be we went!
After our morning devotion, we headed out to Bread and Life soup kitchen. Man, was this thing huge, organized, and efficient!!! There were several parts to it, the obvious one being the soup kitchen part where people can come and eat for free. Ross, Kyle, and myself were the dishwashers! We had the pruniest, nastiest hands afterwards. But I had a fun time getting to know them better :) Another aspect of Bread and Life was their pantry. Each person who joins B&L gets 400 points to their name a month. In this waiting room were a few computers where people can browse and select the food items they want. Once done, a receipt prints out in the back pantry where volunteers bag food accordingly. Apparently this is the first computerized food pantry in the country - so cool! Yet another component to B&L is their library, which enables people to get help finding housing, jobs, filling out applications, etc. B&L does a fantastic job in serving their community and NYC as a whole, and it was a pleasure to work with them!
After we finished, we stepped outside, and Ramona, our host, told us what we would be doing next. It was supposed to be somewhat of a "surprise," but as my mom and Sam have gone on CSM hosted trips before, I knew what was coming. Ramona told us to hand over all our money and snacks (except my emergency ones), and explained we were having an immersion experience. She gave Cody, the oldest, our sheet of instructions and $14 (money for dinner for us AND a homeless person) before she and Joe left us with no maps, money, or cell phones. The seven of us were to travel from where we were to the East side (I am hopeless with directions and placement so I was constantly lost in my mind) by subway. Then we were to complete certain tasks such as observing the different churches, going to a park, asking bystanders there about it's history, find out how much it would cost to rent/buy an apartment, etc. Can you believe that to rent a 2 bedroom condo there was 700k a month (according to the real estate agent. Maybe she meant year...)!?!?! Crazy. Anyways, after we did all of that, we tried to scout out some homeless people. In the 3-4 mile radius we walked, guess how many homeless people we saw. Give up???? TWO! Not as many as I thought there would be. Maybe it was just really cold that day... Anyways, we (and by we I mean Ross) went to one lady and asked if we could buy her dinner and eat with. She said no, she was waiting for someone. So we crossed the street to a man buried in blankets, and he said he just ate dinner. Nearly hopeless, we went back to the first lady and made a deal. We would bring her a hotdog if we could hear her story...thankfully she agreed! So we trudged to the nearest vendor and got 8 $1 hotdogs. We took them to her and we sat and ate as a group. It was quite humbling sitting on the dirty, cold, and busy streets of NY. But she talked, and we listened. Turns out she and her husband lived in New Orleans, and on we birthday Katrina hit. Now their house wasn't damaged too bad, but the police evacuated them and stuck them on a plane to TX. However, during their ride, plans shifted as TX was filled with evacuees. So they ended up in Raleigh, NC of all places (to which we all had a good laugh)! DeeDee and her husband were only there for 2 days though before they went up to NJ, where her family was. But, living with them didn't work out, and they had a friend in NYC who was willing to get them cheap rent. So they moved up there for a few months before their friend "screwed them over" and that's how she ended up on the streets. Her story had a few other bits in it, and it was really cool to take the time to stop and listen to the person people typically ignore. After telling her a little bit about us, we finished our food and said our goodbyes. With $6 left, we went to a little pizza place and each got a piece. They were huge, so we were filled up!
It took us around an hour to get back to the church in Brooklyn, and with aching feet we rested before Joe took us out for...that's right...PIZZA!! Haha :) We debriefed and off to be we went!
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