Layers

Service—leading to lasting change—has a multitude of layers and approaches to success. I could go into a Shrek reference, but I will use the concept as a starting point. There's a lot more to service than one might think. It's one of those entities that leads to exponential exploration: the more you know, the more you realize you don't know. As one might expect, the past year of (indirect) service has helped me barely scrape the surface of what it means to serve, and evaluating ways to do so.

Participating in mission trips leads to great experiences, fantastic growth opportunities, and apparently in regards to my past trip to Jamaica, they could lead to meeting your future spouse (not in my case though, but congrats to Hilary and Stu!) These forays into the lives and cultures of a others for a snippet of time to learn, serve, and then head home are just the beginning. My time of indirect service, building capacity and sustainability for nonprofits, is a step further. I've done direct service in this job and in parts of many other opportunities. Next, I would love to springboard off everything I've learned as an observer and a participant and finally move onto policy. Grassroot movements to actual change. Bandaids to cures. I'm excited to see where life will take me after June 17th, and crossing my fingers that I'll peel back a couple more layers of ways to serve my neighbors.

Face of a client

As an AmeriCorps VISTA, my work is limited to a very small percentage of direct service.  My main goal is capacity building by doing indirect service.  On a slightly related note, I am devastated to report that the star between “AmeriCorps” and “VISTA” has officially been removed from my job title.   Devastated.  RIP asterisk. 

A couple weeks ago I had a rare chance my office had to help answer our hotline calls due to one of our Foodbanks up in Cleveland hosting a Phone-a-thon and needing extra help.  After three calls from various people (mothers of 5, single man, family of 4) with different needs (no gas for the past 5 months, no income/no food, any help I can give), I answered a call from a woman in Franklin County.

When I picked up the phone I could tell she was crying.  Every time you pick up a hotline call it’s a little scary, because the person on the other end of the line is in so much trouble that they have exhausted all personal resources and called a hotline for any help they can get.  So this woman that I was connected with, through her choked up voice, started explaining to me that she lived in a mobile home park and she owned her home, but she had to pay lot rent.  She had an eviction notice on her door because she couldn’t pay her lot rent and couldn’t gather money fast enough.  She would be out on the street in two days if she didn’t pay.  My program helps people apply for benefits like food assistance, which she was already on, so I couldn’t offer her much from our resource pool for housing.   We partner with many organizations that do offer housing assistance among other things we can’t help with, but this woman had put the effort in and sought out help at these organizations, but to no avail.  The organizations she visited can’t help with lot rent, even though this was the cause of her eviction.   This situation would be a major cause of stress for anyone, but this woman spilled the rest of her complications to add on to the impending eviction.  She has depression, anxiety, and is bi-polar.  She doesn’t have enough money to pay for her medicine, so she is quite literally fighting through life every single day.  The effort to make it out of bed and to do what she needs to do is crushing, she explained.  She also was told by her doctor that her front and wisdom teeth need pulled because they are diseased and poisoning her body, slowly killing her.  Among other health problems for herself and not being able to afford ANY care, her daughter is in jail.   I was on the phone with her for 20 minutes, just lending an ear to listen, knowing the entire time I couldn’t really do anything to help.  By the end all I could give her was the number for information referral, the number of a free clinic, and the address of a homeless shelter.  It was very strange hanging up the phone with a woman who I was pretty sure in two days’ time would be standing outside her home, surrounded by her evicted belongings, barraged by mental illness with nowhere to turn. 

This was a difficult but humbling day.  It was weird window into the most burdened population.  We talk about them, we read about them, we do studies on them, we even see them.  But to have this window straight into someone’s life, a 20 minute picture of everything they are facing, and then to carry around this story is a whole different situation.  It sticks with you, and ultimately empowers.  If I ever need motivation to keep doing capacity building, to keep developing programs and making partnerships and solidifying program infrastructure, I can easily recall those 20 minutes as a call to action and a raison d'être for my position.

Friends of the Homeless direct service

In line with many other Americans (http://www.911dayofservice.org/) this week, the VISTA's from Ohio Association of Second Harvest Foodbanks took a day off from our regular work yesterday and did a day of direct service in honor of September 11th.   I think it's fantastic that the silver lining of that fateful day has turned into an annual effort of community service.  Solidarity to build our community is such a powerful response to an act that was probably meant to tear us apart and riddle us with fear.

Friends of the Homeless is the name of the shelter organization that my group worked in.  I was in the men's shelter component, another group worked at Rebecca's place which serves as the women's shelter.  They also have transitional housing and supportive permanent housing available.  See here for more information.  Considering the Benefit Bank has most other needs covered (food, medical, school) it was a great chance for me to play a part in housing residents of Columbus.

The cold weather is right around the corner, so the shelters are gearing up for the overflow of residents in the winter months.  It was a pretty smelly, dirty place as soon as we walked in, so our main job to to clean the best we could for a fresh start.  The living quarters are open floor spaces with single beds and bunks, with lockers up against the wall, and dorm style bathrooms.  We tackled the bathrooms and the floors/walls of the sleeping quarters.

Gloves on, masks on, sponge in hand.  Buckets of bleach, pine sol, and comet.  I have no idea how walls can get so dirty.  This is one of those situations where you cannot think about what you're doing, you just have to dig in and do it.  Like cleaning unidentifiable splashes of substances off the well.  Well, one of the workers pointed out that "You can probably identify what's on there...you just don't want to."  Well said.

It's always a humbling experience to do this type of extreme service work.  It's gross, it's involved, but it's also short term.  At the end of the day I get to leave and return to my apartment.  At the end of the same day, the residents will come back to a room that smells overwhelmingly of cleaning supplies, but is still very obviously dirtied with years of street grit and stained with stories of men who have lost their footing in life.

Direct vs Indirect Service

9:30 every morning like clockwork, my stomach creates a ruckus that disturbs my work as I’m sure everyone around me. Why is it so needy? My trip to the break room to stave off hunger with a cup of coffee reminds me that I am finally part of this elusive “adult world” of office buildings that have water colors and break rooms with coffee (as opposed to my entire job consisting of making and handing out that coffee). The other difference is my work now consisting of indirect service, where before I was only doing direct service. Basically this means before I was hanging out with people, playing with kids, interacting with the community, giving out meals, etc, where now I am on an organizational level, building capacity and connecting organizations and people with tools. I can’t get a clear picture yet of which type I prefer, though granted I have only been at this less than a month. Already in my indirect role I feel like I can see results better, as I am dealing more with numbers equated to success.