Tuesday--a little late!

Today we went to the food depository of the greater Chicago area. The experience was both eye-opening, intriguing and gratifying. With two other school organizations we were able to package 2,941 bags of delicious cornflakes for needy families in the area. It was rewarding to know that in our short time there, we were able to make an impact on many families in the area. The food depository is primarily dependent on volunteers and without the support of the community it would be difficult to continue operating. The volunteers we worked with were from diverse backgrounds. Unbeknownst to us, one of the volunteers was previously homeless and her background was a story of perseverance and strength. Currently employed as a coordinator in a local high school, she now gives back to the community by encouraging service from her students.

After we left the depository, we roamed the city and encountered several homeless individuals. We empathized with these individuals, because our very purpose is to help them. Each of them has a story yet they go untold. Travelers and locals alike often view these unfortunates as an aspect of city life rather than people in need. This is the sad reality of life in the inner city, but sometimes we can only hope that every cornflake makes a difference.

Slightly out of order, but more from the trip (Wednesday)!

Hello World. It's very late and we walked a lot today, so Semme and I are sitting side by side, doing our posts separately, on two computers. Saving the world requires sleep.

Today, ASB Chicago took the rather lengthy trip from downtown Chicago to downtown Evanston, the campus of Northwestern. After being rudely roused at 6:30 by the Great Chicago Fire Alarm of 2010, much of the group had trouble sleeping in until 10 as planned. Nonetheless, our ever expanding knowledge of the Chicago area safely guided us to Evanston.

The most immediately striking part of Evanston was the obvious prosperity that was evident as soon as we exited the subway train. After two days working in rather low income areas of the city, walking into the storefront laden downtown of Evanston was surprising. Even more shocking was that as we neared Connections, the location of today's service, the neighborhood's average income did not seem to drop off. It wasn't until we reached the basement door of Connections that the presence of homelessness in this college town was even remotely visible.

Inside the homeless shelter at Connections, we were given a small tour of the facilities and were given a rundown of the services offered by one of the program's directors. Although it has come up rather frequently on this trip, it’s always amazing to see how many different types of people devote their time to helping the homeless. Sue, the woman showing us around, had a sincere dedication to her work, and seemed to have legitimate pride in the range of services offered by Connections.

After our brief tour, we folded fliers, ate lunch, and headed out in small groups to deliver the fliers door to door. This gave me a chance to see a lot of different neighborhoods in
Evanston. As our group walked around, I couldn’t help but observe the vast swings in wealth that would occur within a few city blocks; from the lakeside mansions to the crowded apartment blocks, it was obvious that everything was not equal in Evanston. In our day to day lives, it seems as if everyone is very quick to let themselves get down about small inconveniences; whether people have a bad day at work, are stuck in traffic, or have to wait too long for dinner to be served, there are endless ways that people find to pity themselves. This tour-de-wealth in Evanston put things into perspective. For people living in lakeside mansions, things will likely always be easier than for those barely scraping it by around the corner. While this doesn’t necessarily translate to happiness (which should likely be the focus of a different, much longer, unrelated blog post), many things will naturally come easier for them. In other words, in the grand scheme of things, someone always has it worse, and pitying ourselves is petty.

On another note, before we left the shelter to pass out fliers, Sue told us about the amount of money it had cost to print the fliers. At $250, many group members, including myself, were skeptical of whether Connections would even recoup the cost of printing the fliers. This ratcheted up some guilt that I had already been feelings. Over the past few days, we’ve had the chance to see homelessness across the city, both on our service trips and on our sightseeing. While so many people literally have nothing, I’m going on a $450 trip halfway across the country, to observe a problem that is rampant 10 minutes from my apartment. After some serious thinking, I think that the main purpose of the trip isn’t necessarily to help out through service trips or to merely witness homelessness. Instead, seeing homelessness in different settings and seeing how different groups combat it is a real eye-opener. It’s almost as if I’ve seen so much homelessness in DC that it doesn’t faze me. Embedding myself in a trip, away from home, for over a week, will hopefully serve to engrain the seriousness of the issue so far into my psyche that when I am out in the real world, making a living, I never forget to stay grounded and help out.

I think that’s all for today. In conclusion: homelessness is all around, Northwestern has a nice campus, St. Patrick’s Day is something I never really celebrate, and walking makes me tired.

Love,

Chris

Wednesday, March 17, 2010

Today we were awoken by a fire alarm around 6:30am, which turned out that someone has pulled down the fire alarm intentionally. It was interesting to see everyone’s faces still half asleep and especially since this was the day we were supposed to sleep in until 9 am. After we collected ourselves, we gathered around 10am we went to Evanston to Connections (formerly Connections of the Homeless).

We got there about 11:15am and met with Sue who is the site coordinator. She gave us a tour of the place, which was located at a basement of a church kind of hidden from the street. The place had refrigerators, washing machines, showers, sleeping beds, etc for people who require its services and can house about 20 people at a time. According to her, they have the capacity to service more people but they found out that it is more individual if they limit the number of people. Wednesday was the day when only females are allowed to use the common area (which has TV, books, computers) and we hardly saw anybody using it. She also said that only 1/3 of the people they serve are women. Sarah (our staff advisor) thought that this is because Connections does not service children at the site, but give them housing at apartments. What was really great about this place was that they require their clients to take essential courses like landlord-tenant relationship, stress management, etc in addition to other courses like yoga and creative art.

Our task was to distribute brochures that have information on Homelessness in Evanston, Connections and how people can help thorough out the neighborhoods of Evanston. We spent like 40 minutes folding them, ate lunch in a park in front of the church, divided ourselves into 4 different groups and set off to our designated territories by 1pm.

Evanston houses Northwestern University (along with several other universities) and is located north of Chicago. It is more or less a residential area for the middle and upper class. Based on the area each group was assigned, we interacted differently with the residents. In the area of the lower and middle class, we had more positive interaction with people and in the more upper class areas there was less interaction. We were very surprised and encouraged with the reaction of the people we got. We heard that the people of Evanston were very involved with the community and are willing to help, which kind of struck us because they could have a bigger and better center like the Merillac house we saw on Monday. We were able to distribute about 80% of the brochures. By the end of the day we were all hoping that these brochures help increase the income of the shelter.

Towards the end of the day we met with the ASB from Northwestern and had very interesting conversations with them about their experiences and ours. They might do things a little bit differently, but it is all for the same purpose.

Today was a very ‘interesting’ day because it was the day we saw everybody open up more during reflection time about their own personal feelings on the whole trip and homelessness. We questioned ourselves more about our every day choices and how we react to homeless people whenever we are walking around. Today definitely challenged us to do some soul searching and forced us to face our reactions to certain situations.

Love,

Semme Y.

Cornerstone Community Outreach

Today we were once again awoken by a fire alarm, YAY!!! After hurrying to get dressed we left for Cornerstone Community Outreach. We were divided into two groups. One group went to the area in which residents live and cleaned out the living quarters of one of the former residents. The other group was taken to the storage room to sort donations. We ate lunch in the same space as the residents of the shelter and had the chance to interact with them and learn about their life. After lunch some of the group went to fold laundry and the rest of the group returned to the warehouse to finish sorting. Before we left, one of the woman who heads the organization gave a presentation about homelessness in general and about the shelter.

We learned that the amount of money individuals receive from the government when they are on welfare is barely enough to cover rent yet enough food and clothing. We also learned there is not enough public housing available and some people stay on the wait list for more than 20 years while others cannot even make the wait list.

During reflection the group arrived at several conclusions:

-The resident whose quarters were being cleaned had been missing for 4-5 days and that is why her belongings were being packed. It was hard for the people packing to go through her personal stuff and in a way evict her from her house but the space could then used for someone else. A lot of the people were comparing her situation to what would happen if they went missing. People would be looking for them, the police would be called and it would probably be on the news. It was sad that this woman, is far as we knew, was on her own and there was nobody to care for her.

-One of the other groups volunteering in the shelter was taking pictures of the homeless individuals during lunch. Also, they were having a conversation with one of the residents. We were all offended by their behavior. It felt as though they were there to observe the individuals, study them, and change them or fix them rather than just listen to them and learn from them.

-On the way back to the metro, we passed a mother who was cursing at her child. Most of the group was shocked and confused by the situation because they never heard a parent talk that way to their child. We discussed whether or not a child growing up in such an environment would have a chance of a better life somewhere else. Also, we discussed how it would be different to grow up in a home that did not provide a strong support system.

-The group discussed how much of their time and money they should keep for themselves and their needs and how much they should use to help other people. It was hard for people to decide where they should place the line that decides what you need and deserve and what is taking too much.

-The discussion was concluded by talking about choices. It was brought up that everyone has a choice and that just because your parents treated you a certain way and you were raised in a certain environment does not mean that you cannot change your life. You can decided to take a different path and live the rest of your life differently. People then debated over whether or not children born into homelessness had a choice as well because homelessness is all they know. They do not know what other choices are out there because they have never been exposed to them.

The day was hard but provided a lot of potential and hope for the group.

Love,

AD and Sahar

Trip to the Marillac House and All Our Endeavors

March 15, 2010

Today we went to the Marillac House outside of downtown Chicago. Our experience began on the way there by observing the surrounding neighborhood. We realized that there was a vast difference between downtown Chicago versus it's outskirts in terms of cleanliness and safety. People had locks on their steering wheels to prevent car theft and there were scattered broken beer bottles everywhere. Once we got to the Marillac House it seemed like a much cleaner and vibrant area of the community. We were greeted initially by one of the Sisters at the House. Even though they were not expecting us due to some minor details, they were very welcoming and were glad to accept our services. The Marillac House prides itself in helping women and children who are underprivileged in ways such as helping teen pregnancy, providing shelter in times of need, and having daycare services.

Some of us went to do yard work around the building while others were able to help in the daycare schooling. Both of us got to work with the children. The age range goes from 15 months to 5 years old. One of the requirements is that the mothers must be either employed or going to school while their children are in daycare. Also, they must be qualified to be subsidized by the government. There was one volunteer per classroom, so we got a good idea of what the learning environment was like for all the children. Our trip leader, Anna, realized something from the experience she had with one child. Her and the child were playing with a doll and he made a comment about the doll being bruised from his dad hitting him. This puts into perspective what environment these children were coming from. Nonetheless, all of the children seemed extremely optimistic and vibrant. They liked all the attention we gave them.

There seemed to be a majority of boys in all the class rooms but all the teachers were female, indicating a lack of male role models for all the boy students. We personally believe the presence of a male in a young boys life is very important. Having older responsible males around would most likely inspire the boys to achieve the very best possible and one day be present in the life of there own children. During reflections a controversial issue emerged. Many people had various opinions about the children saying grace before lunch. Some people thought it would instill good morals, while others felt as though it limited the choice of the child and parent concerning their faith. We realize this is a problem in a lot of schools, whether prayer should be allowed. We never came to a unanimous decision of what is right or wrong.

One thing that threw us off guard was a poster seen in the hallway that said "don't shot, I want to grow up". It was very extreme but made us realize this was a reality for many of the children. After lunch everyone went outside to do yard work. We worked really well as a group to complete the task efficiently. In the process of cleaning we came across dime bags within Marrilac boundaries. This indicated that the area around the center has the presence of drugs.

We appreciate and all the services they provide the community. They are considering possibly closing the facility since the area has improve dramatically. However we are concerned that without the Marrilac House the community will begin to regress. It was amazing to see such a program set up and we hope that they plan to continue it.

Love,

Anna B. and Anne

Yea....Chicago is a really windy city....Silver Bean???!!!

We all left College Park in the wee hours of the morning on Saturday, and embarked on a 14 HOUR ride to Chicago, IL. We all got there exhausted and gross from the drive, but we still somehow managed to wait for Chicago's famous deep dish pizza for over an hour...the long wait paid off especially after seeing Nacho(He had an awesome pizza-shaped haircut!) and of course the deep dish pizza.

Sunday, March 14th 2010,

So today was our first full day in Chicago (at least for most of us). Everyone was pretty exhausted this morning from the long drive but still managed to get up and about. We, well some of us(Ad, Annie, Anna, Dana, Dale, Ivy, Jennifer, Sahar, Semme) started the day off with a good game of UNO, in which Ivy and AD lost, twice!! :( while the others went grocery shopping(boring) ;)

We later headed out for lunch. Some of us were brave enough to try Indian food(which I(Ivy) thought was really good) and Annie and Dale bored themselves with regular old burgers. Then it was time for sightseeing(YAAAY!!)

Here's the deal, we all had heard about the green river, and we were all kinda excited to go see it. Turns out it flows backwards(cool, right?) and it is actually green for St. Patrick's Day.

We split up into groups and ventured out to see what Chicago had in store for us.

The strangest thing 2 of the groups saw was this huge, shiny bean-shaped structure better known as the silver bean. It reflected a big portion of the city, and produced cool images of ourselves. We're still trying to figure out the purpose of the "silver bean".

Chris's group came across a spaceship "thing" at the Navy Pier, which arbitrarily shook and had some spacey time-continuum thingy!(Chris explained it best!)

SHOPPING! a word that the girls appreciated and got to experience today in Chicago. Dale fell in love with Forever21 and got a larger than life headband. Hair was flying everywhere given Chicago's extra windy weather, but that did not stop us in our quest to know and experience the city.

By the end of the day, everyone came to the conclusion that Chicago deserves its given title, "The Windy City", and should even be named "The Magnificent City", for its richness in culture and architecture.

Tacos for dinner made everyone happy :), so happy that everyone got the energy to tackle each other during a game of "move your feet".

After such an eventful day, we definitely can't wait for tomorrow and the rest of the week.

Until later, adios

Love :)

Dale and Ivy

PS. Pictures coming soon.