Community Experience

For my community experience, I went to the Food and Care Coalition and worked in the food line serving dinner to impoverished and homeless individuals. I realized that I expected to see lots of dirty, unkempt people in dirty, worn, poorly-fitting clothes. I was surprised to find mostly the contrary. Most of the people there, while perhaps not dressed especially nice, could fit in in many places. They were not all older either--there were some young families, and a wide range of ages there. Additionally, there were few to no people with facial hair. I realized that most of my pre-conceived notions about homeless people were wrong. Perhaps part of the reason is because the Food and Care Coalition offers so many services to the homeless that they perhaps are able to function better in society. Or perhaps many homeless people have the cultural capital to be able to fit in and conceal their homeless state.  However, it made me realize that I could have extremely poor students in my classes and not even realize it, because they blend in so well with everyone else.

Additionally, I was surprised with how happy everyone seemed at the Food and Care Coalition. Even though the people there must deal with a lot of stress from poverty and homelessness, they were happy while they were there and genuinely grateful for our service. I was also impressed at how much the community does for the Food and Care Coalition--I realized that privately-owned places can take care of the poor quite well if the community is willing to help. It might make a good assignment for high schoolers to volunteer somewhere like that to learn more about their community and their civic duty within it. It would help students break down prejudices and gain love and understanding for the less fortunate in their community.