I was incredibly moved by Toni Flynn’s book, “Finding My Way: A Journey Along the Rim of the Catholic Worker Movement.” Near the end of the book, she describes a moment she had in which she had o question her morals because she chose not to act when she should have. The anecdote she shares is about what she witnessed while eating an ice cream cone outside of a restaurant on the Santa Monica Pier. As she was sitting there, a homeless man approached the restaurant and began looking in the rubbish bin for something to eat. Instead of trying to assist the hungry man, one of the bartenders approached the homeless man and cruelly screamed at him to get away. The man elucidated that he was hungry and continued to look through the trash. In response, the bartender slammed the lid of the can onto the other man’s fingers. Instead of speaking out against the bartender’s actions, Toni sat there silently, stunned.

After the incident, Toni was troubled by her inability to act in the face of such blatant inhumanity. She asks herself, “what dark side of myself did I encounter? Why, witnessing an injustice, did I not act in some way to prevent such a violent, degrading incident? How can I forgive myself for committing such a gross withholding of love?” (p.53).

This quote was particularly significant to me, because it is a moment that I’m sure all of us can relate to, where we saw something wrong and did nothing to stop it. This quote reminds me of how I felt the other day. Last weekend, I was headed into a restaurant with my friend to get some lunch when we were approached by a homeless man holding window washing tools. He asked if he could clean her car windows in exchange for a few dollars. She declined his offer. He then asked us if we had any food we were willing to spare. Both of us said we did not. Once inside of the restaurant, I was overwhelmed by guilt. How dare I be so selfish as to deny another human being something as easy to accommodate as a meal? Horrified with my moral character, I quickly asked the hostess if she could expedite a to-go order so that I could provide the man with dinner. She obliged and I jogged outside to find the man so that I could offer him some food.

As I walked up to him, I witnessed him ask two other people for some spare change. Both individuals brushed him off. I greeted the man and asked if he’d be interested in some Mexican food. He seemed shocked by my offer and it took him a moment before he accepted. The two of us talked as we walked back over to the restaurant. Once there, I retrieved his dinner and he gratefully took it. As he was departing, the two men that had denied helping him earlier walked back up to him and both of them handed him a $20 bill. It just goes to show that even the smallest of gestures such as buying a hungry man some dinner can inspire others to do the right thing. I know that if I had gone on to eat my dinner without helping this man, I would’ve felt like Toni and hated myself for my inability to extend compassion to someone who needs it.

My internship was at a food bank here in the Inland Empire. This organization collects both local and nationally donated foods from a variety of sources. The donations are processed through their warehouse and then distributed to a variety of organizations (such as shelters, youth homes, soup kitchens, etc.) that share similar goals of helping those in need. This organization is functional due to their efficient structure.

The first important aspect is the staff and volunteers. Volunteers and staff are used as basically labor. It’s not intensive,  but they need as many hands as possible to pack boxes so the organization can stay efficient.There is a very relaxed hierarchy within the warehouse, everyone’s basically performing similar tasks. They emphasize a team dynamic

Funding is also vital to this organization. It costs the organization money to transport and store the food that they collect. Corporate sponsors play a huge role in financial assistance. Feeding America and United Way are the two main partners that provide financial donations.They also get revenue from what they call a shared maintenance contribution.  Some members told me corporate donations allow them to waive handling fees for the organizations they are providing to. While others told me they did have to pay. If you look at the application forms online, there is a detailed section of the contract regarding these fees. Either way, someone pays for their services. Local financial donations are also collected but they have a much smaller impact on the finances.

In order for an organization to become aligned with food bank and receive food, they must go through an application process.  The application is about twelve pages long detailing the steps an organization needs to take and paperwork to be filled out. It serves as a contract between the two parties as it outlines expectations and rules that are to be followed to receive food.

All of these structural aspects affects how well they live up to their goals and mission statement. This organization is efficient and successful in their goals. They provide food to organizations around the county and play an important role in feeding hundreds of people year around since 1980. But there are some downfalls to the type of assistance they offer when considering the bigger picture of poverty.

Having a large pool of donors is great for quantity but not for quality.  Most common items were snack foods, condiments and cereal that had little to no nutritional value and many of the donations are also either already expired or nearing expiration. There were some organic and gluten free items but they were still snack foods.

This organizations plays a huge role in feeding those in need and they do great work on the micro scale. They do not attack the issues on a structural level. It is a more reactionary type of assistance. This food bank will not achieve their mission of ending hunger within their function and structure as an organization. Providing someone with food enables individuals to survive while on the street or in hard times but not a way for any individual to escape their situations.

After volunteering for nearly two months at a local shelter in the Coachella Valley, I came to understand profoundly the critical issues of homelessness, and the structural system that creates poverty to be prevalent in our communities.  When I first arrived in the site, I came with partial knowledge of homelessness that was taught in class in terms of social support systems, history, and public policies.  The materials covered in class were evidence of a hidden issue that remain alive for decades, and continues to grow.  However, the facts were just an example of the unknown existence behind the lives of the people struggling to overcome poverty.

Having the opportunity granted by the agency to study in depth the foundations of homelessness, it change my way of perceiving people dealing with problems of addiction, domestic abuse, and financial reasons.  In the end I came to conclude that people like them are just the same ways as me trying to become better persons in life with goals for a better society.  In this journey I discovered my passions, aspirations, and capabilities, when I learned to overcome challenges that were difficult for me to handle.  I was push into the world of humanity to learn from my own mistakes, and learned to develop new techniques to face my fears of failure.  I came to the shelter asking myself who am I? And where do I want to belong?  After experiencing and witnessing the social inequalities towards the homeless people on the street, I realize that that’s the place where I want to belong, and I want to be to provide assistance in support, guidance, and inspirations.

Being part of the organization I learned by memory the services that the shelter provides, and I build relationships with people, in reality they gave me the sense of returning back to their community.  I was challenged by the residents to accept me in their social groups, and these innocent people open the doors that were once close to me, due to the insecurities of disrespect, and loyalty outsiders provided them. With the patience, and motivations of others volunteers I was accepted by the homeless people.  Sharing my background as a child into adulthood, I was surprised about the homeless people automatically opening up to me sharing their stories, concerns, and goals.

One volunteer in the homeless shelter always inspire me to do more than what I usually do inside the facility.  He taught me thoughly the difficult backgrounds that is inevitable to be ignored from the public to help the people in need.  I personally think that volunteers take an important role to go out of their way taking the extra mile to educate people, and to plan a proposal that can help them maintain, and achieve their goals.  In order to break the cycle of homelessness in the Coachella Valley, someone needs to take the lead to bring public awareness to the communities of the hardships of homelessness, and poverty.  I feel that many shelters have the resources, but do not strive to educate the general public about the importance of getting involved in their community.  As well as the staff not sharing the necessary time to engaged with people to meet their needs.  I am gladly to say that I am happy to be part of this organization to help implement changes that can encourage, fair treatment, and opportunities.

As the course is coming to an end my interest for hunger and homeless is beginning to grow even stronger. There was so much information and knowledge I received from this course with the readings that were assigned, guest/professional speakers, and I think the most important and valuable, the internship.

Although my time in participating in my internship for this course has finished I will continue on being a volunteer. I was fortunate enough to be part of two internships, seeing two different styles of organizations. With class discussions and the readings assigned I was able to really observe and see both the strengths and the flaws within these organizations.

The first internship I volunteered at was not what I had expected all. There was a different feel to everything there. They lacked staff members, volunteers, and communication amongst each other. I was never greeted by any sort of staff but was taken in by one of the individuals that lived there. I really wanted to know more about them, how they got there, the programs they are committing too but nothing was shown or said. The website for this shelter said they had a lot of programs yet I never saw any activities of that sort. Perhaps the programs were not simply given the days I went. It seemed to me that the goal there was to fix and mold, to make the individuals grow up. As we discussed in class, many shelters think that fixing is what they need to do. I believe the individuals need a hand and a present example of a person with stability not someone who wants to fix them because they are all wrong an unacceptable of some sort. It was hard to see the way in which these individuals were demanded to do some stuff by one of the two directors. It seemed completely unprofessional the way in which the directors went about certain things. Something I found to be different and perhaps better in a sense is the idea of not enabling. Most of the other shelters consisted of serving food, volunteer catering to the individuals but it was not like that in this shelter. The individuals taken were assigned different chores and jobs around the lot. For example if someone was cooking they cooked for the rest of the individuals in the household. They were a very small network, they acted as a family in the way that each person take initiative to complete a task to maintain a clean household.

The second internship I went to was better organized. This organization focused on the youth in Redlands. They had a variety of staff members, donations, and volunteers. The way they are structured and even the process in becoming a volunteer seemed to be very legitimate. They take precaution in everything they do with the youth that come. They are very accepting of any youth, some of those kids come there frequently or once a month, simply depending on them. They are not forced to go to any treatment. Basically the main goal of this organization is to give care and support to the youth. One thing that they are currently lacking is resources because they are there to also provide educational resources. One of the main reasons why they are lacking that at the moment is because they are under reconstruction.

Regardless of what these shelters/ organizations are lacking they are doing something towards helping decrease hunger and homelessness. They are dedicating time and effort on the lives of others and that is admirable.