Weeks 37, 38 & 39 - Old friends, Misericordia and Covenant House

If you have been keeping track of our charity work, you will certainly have noticed that as Fall approached, we seem to have fallen off the map.  September has been a supremely busy month for both Jen and I, and while we have not stopped doing something every week, I have not been very good about writing about it.  So let me catch you up on what we have been up to...

Over the last three weeks, we have visited a couple old friends.  We had a great distribution session at Lakeview Pantry, where we served a lot of people and had a great time, as we have come to expect.  We also served dinner at the Franciscan House of Mary and Joseph.  That night was great for a couple of reasons.  The first was that there was a family volunteering with two very feisty 8th or 9th grade girls who were really into the work, and were all full of giggles.  It made the night go really quickly and we spent most of it laughing.  That emotion seemed to radiate out into the patrons we served, because the other great thing about that night was how thankful and cheerful all the patrons were.  Often times at this shelter, the people we serve are pretty wrapped up int their own problems and don't have a lot of energy or emotion to spare for thank yous, but when we were there, everyone was kind of upbeat and very grateful.  Obviously we don't go there to be thanked, but when the patrons are thanking you, it gives much more of a chance to connect with them, to look them in the eyes.  Being able to connect like that, even for a moment, is good for the people in the shelter.  It reminds them that even though they are ignored and treated like they don't exist for most of their day on the streets, there are still some people who look at them and see a person, not just a beggar.  In any case, it was one of our better night at the House.

Even before we did either of these things, Jen and her friend Vicki volunteered, as they have for the last handful of years, at the Misericordia Family Fest.  Misericordia is an institution in Chicago that provides housing and development opportunities people with Down's Syndrome and other cognitive disorders.  They have residents of all ages from across the spectrum of functional levels.  They strive to provide not just housing but also enrichment to the live of their residents.  To that end, they provide training in life skills and offer employment to their residents, involving them as wait staff in a cafe, assistants in a bakery and in other small commercial ventures run by the organization.  Residents make art and craft items which are sold to help  cover the immense cost of keeping the facility and all of its service running.  Family Fest is an annual fund raising effort in which Misericordia basically throws a big party staffed by volunteers and the family members of the residents.  They have bingo and games and music and food, much like any other festival.  Because it is held on the Misericordia grounds, there is also a strong component of introducing people to the work of the organization.  Jen has been a big fan of Misericordia for a long time, and also helps with their other fund raiser, called Candy Days, when volunteers fan out thought the city to solicit drivers at busy intersections in exchange for some candy.  She tells me that she and Vicki had a great time at this year's Family Fest, and that she is looking forward to going back next year.

That brings us up to this past week, a week in which we had no time to volunteer.  In place of that, we decided to give some money to a group called Covenant House, which is dedicated to helping homeless children get off the street.

Covenant House was founded in 1972 in New York City as a single shelter for runaways and homeless kids.    In the ensuing 40 years, it has spread across the U.S. as well as south into Mexico and other Central American countries to become the largest privately funded agency in the Americas providing "loving care and vital services to homeless, abandoned, abused, trafficked, and exploited kids."  There are Covenant House locations in 21 cities in the U.S., Canada and Central America, including Anchorage, Atlanta, Atlantic City, Detroit, Fort Lauderdale, Houston, Los Angeles, Managua, Mexico City, Milpas Altas, Newark, New Orleans, New York, Oakland, Orlando, Philadelphia, St. Louis, Tegucigalpa, Toronto, Vancouver, and Washington, D.C.  They served over 50,000 kids in the last year alone.

When a child comes to Covenant House they are immediately given food and a secure place to sleep, as well as clothes and medical attention.  Sadly, almost all of the kids who come to the House need all of those things.  After those physical needs are met, the staff must slowly and carefully try to navigate the minefield of the needs which are not so easily seen or so easily dealt with.  Most of the children who have been on the street for any length of time have experienced some kind of sever abuse.  Many have been forced into prostitution by people they thought of as friends.  Almost all have been abandoned and betrayed enough that getting them to open up to anyone, even the caring staff at Covenant House is beyond difficult.  They have all been scarred, and the long, careful work of helping them back to health in body, mind and soul is exactly what Covenant House does.

Their skill and experience with bringing kids back from the edge of desperation is pretty clear in the excerpt from their website, detailing the mission and vision of Covenant House:

Immediacy

Homeless kids come to Covenant House in crisis. Immediately and without question, we meet their basic human needs – a nourishing meal, a shower, clean clothes, medical attention, and a safe place away from the dangers of the street.

Sanctuary

Homeless kids arriving at our door are often frightened and mistrustful. Young men and women can grow only when they feel safe and secure – Covenant House protects them from the perils of the street and offers that important sense of security.

Value Communication

Lying, cheating, and stealing are common survival tools on the street. Covenant House teaches by example that caring relationships are based on trust, respect, and honesty.

Structure

Homeless kids never know how they will get their next meal or where they will sleep. Covenant House provides the stability and structure necessary to build a positive future.

Choice

Young people often feel powerless to control their lives and fall into a self-defeating cycle of failure. Covenant House fosters confidence, encouraging young people to believe in themselves and make smart choices for their lives.

As you might expect from reading their approach to helping, their success rate is very good, and the web site is filled with stories of kids who have managed to cast aside lives of gangs and prostitution, drugs and alcohol to stand on their own as strong, healthy young men and women.  It is very inspiring reading, if you can stand to hear about the pain and suffering that begins every story.

In the past year, as we have worked around the city, we have seen how hard life on the street can be for adults, and in all of our work around the homeless, we have never seen a single child on his or her own.  Does that mean that there simply are no homeless kids in Chicago?  As much as I would like that to be true, it surely is not.  What it does mean is that organizations who are doing real, tangible good for the homeless people of the city are not reaching the children.  There is no Covenant House in Chicago, and it makes me wonder who, if anyone is serving the disenfranchised kids in our city.  I may very well find out, and give them some money as well, but until then, at least Covenant House is helping the kids in other cities, and I am proud to support them.

For more information on Misericordia, click HERE.

For more information on Covenant House, click HERE.

Week 36 - Lakeview Pantry Produce Pickup

This week Jen and I worked with our friends at the Lakeview Pantry, but we helped out in an unusual way, at least for us.  Instead of helping distribute the Pantry's food, we helped collect it.

The Pantry gets food from many sources.  The largest single source is the Greater Chicago Food Depository, which we have written about in previous posts, but they also get donations from grocery stores like Trader Joe's and from individuals through food drives.  The source that I think is the coolest is the Green City Market, the farmer's market that takes place in Lincoln Park every Wednesday and Saturday throughout the summer. (It goes on during the colder months too, but it goes indoors).  For the last three years, Lakeview Pantry has been giving the farmers at the market an option to donate some of their produce that would otherwise not be sold.  The farmers had been composting those items that would not keep until the next market, or that did not look good enough to sell, but were still fine to eat.  Now, the Pantry comes to the market with volunteers, hands out donation bins to all the farmers, and then collects whatever the farmers have to give.

The Pantry has distribution on Saturday mornings, so when you volunteer for the market run, you are pretty much on your own.  Since we had not done it before, we were careful to get very specific directions about when and how to go about our duties.  We hopped in the Pantry's cargo van and got down to the market ahead of schedule, but we lost some time trying to park.  Parking in the area of the market is always hard, and with all the vendors and all the shoppers, and us in a great big van, it was really just a matter of luck that we got a spot after only three circuits of the area.  Once we "landed" we walked around the market, which was very busy, and found out where we were supposed to be.  The Pantry sets up right next to the composting/recycling/trash area in order to catch any farmers who might not know about the option to donate.  When we got to that spot, we were almost immediately approached by a really nice farmer who was worried that the Pantry was not going to be there that week.  Apparently, they are used to the volunteers coming around with bins earlier than we were told to do it.  It was no worries though.  That farmer grabbed a few bins and went off to pack them up.

We collected the food in plastic bins with hinged tops.  If you have ever been to a farmer's market, you will know what kind of bins I mean - all of the vendors use them.  We brought about 45 of those bins along, with the expectation of filling more than half of them, at least.   The friendly farmer came back twice for more of them.  I stayed with the pile of bins while Jen took some on a cart around to all the vendors.  Since the Pantry has been doing this for some time now, the farmers did not need any convincing.  Basically every vendor who sold produce gave us something.  We also got a flour sack full of buns from a baker.  It was a beautiful day to hanging around in the park, with 70 degrees, sunshine and a light breeze, so we had a wonderful time with our work.

Once all the bins were out and the farmers were all breaking down their tents, we collected the bins and loaded up the van and headed back to the pantry.  We unloaded all of the bins there, weighed them, inventoried what was donated and then refrigerated the bins that needed it (mostly the leafy green and herbs).  It turned out that we had gotten 29 bins full, totaling 877 pounds of produce, plus the sack of bread.  That number makes it a good haul, but somewhere in the middle of the range for the life of the program.  It seems the best load was about 1100-1200 pounds (all apples, tomatoes and cucumbers...) and that the low end is down around 500 pounds.  Looking at all of what we collected, and thinking that it otherwise would have gone to waste, I was really glad that the Pantry puts in the effort to collect it.

It reminded me of a fact that we keep coming across in our volunteer work:  For the last 15 years or so, there has been more food grown on earth than is needed to feed the population of earth.  Right now, we produce enough food to give every person on earth 2800 calories per day.  That is enough to make everyone a little fat, much less to make them healthy.  So why do some people have nothing to eat?  And where are all those calories going?  While some people eat way more than 2800 calories in a day, I can't imagine overeating accounts for the discrepancy.  Food is wasted all the time.  Now, I know why some people have and others don't.  Self-interest and desire to have the most of everything will always beat out the instinct to share and make sure everyone has enough.  But I am still glad we could be a part of collecting a little of the food that isn't good enough for those with access to their 2800 calories and more, and give it to those who need it, even if it isn't polished, pristine, perfect produce.  This was a fulfilling, wonderful day for us, and we will definitely look to do it again.

For more information about the Pantry and its many programs, go to Lakeview Pantry.