For my outside volunteer project, I spent an evening with Hanna and Janis at the Denver Rescue Mission (DRM). Upon arriving, we noticed a Boy Scout leader standing outside the volunteer entrance and realized immediately that the work load that night was going to be super-light as Boy Scout groups tend to be large. The shift was over-booked with volunteers, which allowed for some time to sit down with the director to talk about the mission and details of the DRM. The director was an interesting sort of man. He was extremely personal, delving into each of our backgrounds and asking personal questions about why we chose to work at the rescue mission for the evening. He was very curious about the latter, wanting to know in detail why we chose to work there and what potential we saw for service-learning integration with the work we would be doing. He also seemed somewhat cynical towards the environment of the DRM, frequently telling us the DRM is full of negative energy and sorrowful faces which can be draining on volunteers. He even stated that it was a wonder why anybody chose to volunteer there—an unconventional and almost alarming statement when prepping three girls for a three hour volunteer shift. I was afraid at first that with the number of volunteers there going to render us almost completely useless to the DRM for the evening. We were placed on dinner prep, which is not the most interactive volunteer project, and we were stuck rolling sporks for the evening. As unlucky as this might seem, we were lucky to get to interact with a member of the Scouts who came and helped us with the rolling. The kid was an incredible, home-schooled middle school student who could have been labeled “too bright for his own good.” For an hour of volunteering we sat and talked with him, learning about concerns of middle school—taking tests and getting on sports teams—and the difference in being home-schooled versus private and public institutions—whether or not he felt left out socially or if it was going to be a difficult adjustment when he finally enrolled into a school or college.
For a really interesting twist, the director specifically asked one volunteer, a participant in the DRM rehab program, to come talk with our group about his experience in rehab program and his life before going to DRM. Even though he started to talk to us right after our shift ended, we stayed and listened to his story close to an hour after our shift ended. We were completely enraptured by his recounting of personal events: arrests, drug abuse, marriage, divorce, soul-seeking, and rehabilitation. I had a group meeting that I was voluntarily late for to allow him to finish sharing his story. It was almost as if we were used for his cathartic release, and I could not take that away from him. Although we did not get to work directly with the homeless coming into the shelter, I feel I gained more insight from this one man and his journey than I learned from any experience of the past weekend. In order to break the cycle of poverty, homelessness, or drug and alcohol abuse, one must be determined enough to get out, to realize that one slip-up will start the cycle over again, and that avoiding these mistakes is crucial. The second step to recovery is not so much a second step but goes hand-in-hand with the first; second, admittance is necessary to keep accountable, to follow and stay on the right track. He was asked to come speak to our group, even though he had work to do for the program that day, he took the time to come down and talk because, as he said, it was just as important for his rehabilitation to have to be honest about his past so he can look forward to his future knowing he never wants to go back there. He spoke to us with such humility and honesty that is rarely seen in any conversation, much less a conversation on faults and bad decisions in life. I appreciated every extra moment we spent there because I was able to see the extent the humility and honesty helped relieve him of at least a part of his past.
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