The Visor

Unconventional service experiences change perspectives

October 6, 2009

Jessica Contrera

Every day on my way home from school, I pass at least three people standing on the side of the road, with worn out clothes, tired faces and signs that read, in childlike handwriting something along the lines of “Need food, money, clothing for my family. Anything will help.”

Sometimes, if I have some of my lunch left over I will lock my doors, roll down my window and toss it to them with a pretty awkward smile. But my charity pretty much stops there. Raised to know the value of hard work, I admittedly always think to myself, “What are you doing standing on the road, waiting for other people to help you out? Go get a job.”

That all changed for me last Tuesday. I attended the currently unnamed program, started by the Peace and Justice Club and Campus Ministry, that takes a different approach to helping the needy. We simply went out looking for those in need.

It works like this: ten students, including myself along with teachers Mr. Milo and Mr. Horinger, collected food, drinks and clothing and packed them into a van. We then roamed the roads of Akron and pulled over whenever we saw someone who looked like they could benefit from something to eat. Then, we didn’t just give them a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and go on our way; we introduced ourselves and heard their stories. This is the part that had such a drastic effect on me.

Sure, we met the “typical” drunk, homeless guy who can’t hold a job and admittedly messed up his life for himself. But then there were the others.

We met a woman named Rose, who is homeless because she was recently diagnosed with breast cancer and can’t pay her medical bills. We met Jess, who lost custody of her son to her rapist husband, and can’t afford to take him to court. We met Bill, who spends the little money he has on taking in those with drug and alcohol problems, trying to get them clean. And we met countless others who day after day search for a bit of work that they are often underpaid for, in the midst of trying to find food, shelter and hope.

These weren’t people presented to us as speakers about the hard times they have faced. They are the people you see sleeping in Grace Park, the ones on the steps of St. Bernard’s waiting for food and the ones on the side of the road with cardboard signs.

I would estimate that on Tuesday night, our group provided around 75 people with food, clothes and our company. It breaks my heart to think of all the people we didn’t help and how quickly hunger would return to the ones we did.

It is only the lessons I learned on this excursion that can last infinitely. But in the words of Archbishop Oscar Romero, “We cannot do everything, and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that. This enables us to do something, and to do it very well. It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning, a step along the way, an opportunity for God’s grace to enter and do the rest.”

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