People can sometimes act reluctant towards the homeless population. When I’m in the city I always see people avoiding the homeless people and walking around them. I sometimes feel that the homeless are viewed as dangerous and unstable. I was a little nervous about the midnight run at first because I had never gone up to a homeless person before and I knew this would be a new experience for me. During my academic service learning experience doing the midnight run my views on the homeless are completely different. It’s important to always help those who are less fortunate. When helping out the homeless you leave a big impact on them and it often makes their day. The feeling that you get when a homeless person has a smile on their face is unbelievable. It feels great to know you’re making a difference and interacting with someone who might not have as much socialization on a regular basis.
During the midnight run we were transported on the campus ministry bus to the city. We prepared meals and placed them in bags. Each bag contained a peanut butter and jelly sandwich or a turkey and ham sandwich. A snack was also included to distribute to the homeless. We also brought boxes filled with clothes and toiletries to provide the homeless with essentials. We stopped at several different stops and it was amazing seeing how many homeless people were standing waiting for us to arrive. It felt great and sad at the same time seeing all the people jumping up and down as they saw us pulling up to the curb on the bus. The line of homeless people waiting to get food was so long it was unbelievable.
One of my favorite experiences while doing the midnight run was when a lady was walking by coming back from work and saw us and got so excited and started jumping and dancing saying that this made her whole day. Even though some people may have a job it’s difficult to have enough money to have the essentials and support a family. It felt so good seeing someone walk by and have her whole day made even better. When she saw that we had clothes as well she got even more excited and ran to the back of the truck to get socks.
In Pope Francis’ Mercy reading it states, “To give bread to the hungry is necessary. But there is also a deeper hunger, a hunger for happiness” (Francis, page 40). This shows that it is important to feed the hungry, but the true importance is how it makes the person feel. It brings a person joy to share joy. When I saw the smile on people’s faces it is what drove me to continue to provide food and interact with the homeless even after my volunteer experience. Making people happy makes you feel happy too. “Production of food is efficient, yet millions of persons continue to suffer and die from hunger”(Francis, page 38). It’s sad how there is so much food to supply to others in this world, yet people who don’t have money have to face starvation. During the midnight run homeless people were begging for seconds and thirds of the snack bags. It’s insane to me how there is so much food production and people are still faced with no food or very little food.
Pope Francis emphasizes the universal destination of all goods. This is a teaching of the Catholic Church. All goods of creation should be for the humankind as a whole. It should not depend on the amount of money someone has. During my volunteer experience I realized how the smallest things can make the homeless happy. Something as simple as a peanut butter and jelly sandwich made them so excited. If the universal destination of all goods was a thing starvation would not be as much of an issue. “All people would have fair access to essential and primary goods that every person needs to which he or she has a right” (Francis, page 38).
The Parable of the Good Samaritan displays neighborly love. A man that goes from Jerusalem to Jericho is attacked by robbers and stripped naked. They beat him up until he is half dead. A priest and Levite see him and walk around to the other side of the road. They do not help him. A Samaritan stops to take care of him and takes him to an Inn and pays to take care of the man. This parable relates to my volunteer experience a lot. A lot of the time when seeing a homeless person people will avoid them and go to the opposite side of the street. Even though they are human like us we still avoid them and view them poorly.
In the parable people see the man is injured yet they go to the other side of the road to avoid him. During my volunteer experience we directly went up to the homeless and helped them out by providing them with essentials and food. This relates to how the Samaritan goes up to the man who is injured and helps care for him. The man was a Jew and Samaritans are enemies of Jews. The Samaritan went up to the man at his own risk to help take care of him. The Samaritan spends his own money and promises to come back to the Inn showing compassion for the man even though Jews are enemies of the Samaritan. The moral of the parable is that we should love everyone. This relates to my volunteer experience because we showed that we cared about helping the homeless. It’s important to show respect and care for everyone.
Overall, through this volunteer experience I’ve learned it’s important to show love to all people. When you’re on the streets and you see a homeless person you should never avoid them. Go up to them and talk to them or give them food because it makes their day. You never know what someone is going through.
Ashley Golden global passport 