This past weekend I was lucky enough to be able to go and volunteer in Denver with 12 other people from CSU for 3 days. I was accepted into this program with the ability to go and participate in three different trips with the same group of people who are all also interested in volunteering and taking trips. This trip was he first of three and we left Fort Collins Friday November 21st and then left Denver to head back either to Fort Collins or home Monday November 24th.
Friday November 21st:
We had a potluck at one of the site leaders’ apartment. We got to talk about our excitement and what we were most nervous about with the trip. We then talked about who would be driving and who was leaving straight from Denver to go home and who was coming back, to make sure we had enough cars to get the people back to Fort Collins. We packed all of the cars with all of the food and people and headed out. We had to stop at one persons’ house so they could drop off the food that was extra so her roommates could eat it and it wouldn’t go to waste. At that point, the rest of us waited for her to come and we would continue the train of cars down to Denver, but some miscommunication happen and two of the cars left without the three others of us, so as we were waiting for this person, it was found that she was actually on the road, so we started on the road and headed to Denver.
We had no idea where we were going. No one knew where we were staying; all we had was an address and the fact that it was a house that is rented out for free to people who are staying in Denver volunteering for free. Two Missionaries own it and they have a housekeeper and when they are gone, it is rented out and their story is told and we learn about what they do.
We arrived to Denver after 9pm and started to unload our stuff, when the housekeeper named Phil began to show us around. We found out that it had 12 bedrooms and then 2 kitchens and a large basement. It was a really nice place- very old, but a nice place. We all had to decide where we were staying, when we decided we would all stay in the basement together. So, we were in this very large house with almost enough bedrooms for everyone to have his or her own, and we decided to sleep together in the basement. We then started listening to what Phil had to say about the house and the people that lived their and his job and it was interesting, but he talks a lot. We didn’t even get to bed until 2 am, which was really ridiculous!
Phil works with the illegal Hispanics that come into the country. He works to fight for their rights especially when they are not being treated fairly or being paid. He takes the employers to court and does protests and stuff in front of these businesses if they are known not to pay their workers and threaten the lives of the Spanish.
Saturday November 22nd:
We woke up at 6:15am and headed over to El Centro where Phil does a lot of stuff with the illegal immigrants. We brought them donuts and also talked to a few of them. It was very awkward because almost all of us couldn’t speak Spanish and these men couldn’t speak English so we felt weird and I personally didn’t want to be there anymore because I didn’t feel comfortable and I felt that if you are going to have a conversation with someone, you should at least know the language, but I personally could not do anything except understand what they were saying. I could not respond to anything they said, other then basic stuff.
We then finally left there around 8:30 and 4 people went to Earth Links and volunteered and the rest of us went over to Samaritan House. I went over to the Samaritan House and helped to move boxes around in the warehouse. They had boxes all over the place and had boxes of Olympic apparel that needed to be put away and into boxes to be given out later. This apparel was from Atlanta as they were a a contestant for the 2013 Olympics, but they couldn’t sell it all. Some of it was also from Tour de France and clothes left over from the Olympics being in China. We also moved large boxes of diapers from one set of shelves to another so they could have room for Christmas toys and holiday stuff. I never realized how heavy diapers were until I was trying to more over 100 of these boxes! It was ridiculous! Some members of our group painted the stairwell railings. We talked to a guy named Robert who was the one that gave us the stuff to do, and he was so honest about the organization. He didn’t hold back to what could be done to improve the place and he was all by himself running this place for maintenance. The Catholic Charities (who runs Samaritan) decided to lay people off and his partner was laid off and now he must do all the maintenance by himself along with other stuff. It takes over $1000 an hour to run the place properly, which is absolutely ridiculous. We learned about how this place takes in the homeless and helps them get back on their feet if they want that ability. They also have an Overflow place where the homeless that don’t get into the House which houses over 100 men and 48 women and 21 families, can go at night. They raffle off beds at night and if you don’t get a bed, you get a ticket and can come in at 8pm to sleep on a mattress for the night.
We left there and headed back to our house to stay the night and while we were there we decided that the people at Earth Links might like to actually work at the Samaritan House serving food at night, were a few of us were supposed to go back and help. We called them up and they said they were extremely bored and wanted to know if 3 of us could come and take their places. I went with two other people to trade off. When we got their we learned that all they had been doing was sitting at a table and selling items all day, at this point they had been there from 9am to 3pm. We were only there for one hour so that was a very good thing, but that hour went by extremely fast.
Earth Links is a place where the homeless and people of low-income can work in a garden maintaining it and dry and press the flowers during the summer. They get paid to do this, and then in the winter they use those flowers that they dried and pressed, to make bookmarks and candles and candle holders. These are then sold online, and at random churches. The money goes to pay for their salary and then to buy new flowers to plant and maintain. It is a revolving circle and they are a non-profit organization.
After leaving Earth Links, we headed back to the house where we learned that the people were not home and so we walked around the block and waited outside of the house until they got back. They had gone on a walk and went to blockbusters to see if they could find some movies that Phil was talking about.
We started to make dinner for the night, which was spaghetti and salad. We all originally were doing that, but then decided it was just too much and half of us went up to the second kitchen and started to make the cookies that we would be handing out later in the weekend. Our first batch of cookies was a complete mess and it was horrible. We forgot the sugar, salt, water, vanilla, and baking soda. It was a sad time ☹ But we had a blast during the whole experience and we were laughing and talking so much and we just had a great time even with our problems. We made 3 sets of doubled batched cookies and that took forever!
At dinner we realized that Phil had invited some people over. They were his friends and they lived down the street and knew all about the people who lived in the house and wanted to meet us. They were some nice people.
After they left, we had a group meeting about what we were doing on Sunday as Phil wanted us to do stuff, but we already had something planned. Phil wanted us to go to Spanish Mass and do a protest with him and something else, but we had a plan of and “emergent experience” already planned out. I really wanted to do that because going to Mass was not my thing, and this guy was already annoying me. He kept changing out plans and wanted us to do everything with the illegal immigrants and not really the homeless, which was our original plan. It was interesting. Some people really wanted to do his stuff and some wanted the experience. We decided that we would do the experience and if later you wanted to join up with Phil you could, because mass didn’t start until 9:15 and the experience started at 6am. We headed to bed around midnight and had to be up at 5:30am.
Sunday November 23rd:
We were woken up at 5:30am and had to be out of the house no later then 6am. We were sent in groups of two to be “homeless” for a day. We were given an identity and had to accomplish about 3 different goals for the day, along with surviving the day. My partner and I were given the identity of being 16 year old homeless teens. We started out walking with another group but then decided to branch off and go on our own once we got away from where we were staying during this trip. We stopped at a bus station first and got a map and realized it was extremely warm in there. We then walked over to the Samaritan House to get breakfast, but we couldn’t find the breakfast line, so we decided to leave. We headed down to 16th Street Mall. It was absolutely ridiculous. It was dark and cold and no one was outside because it was like 7:30 in the morning on a Sunday. We walked around and we realized the only people who actually said hello were the homeless or the people cleaning the streets. I thought it was crazy to see the homeless so friendly to others in the morning, where the people who have no worries about where they sleep at night and where they stay warm, are snobby and stupid. It really brought into prospective of whether or not I do that on a daily basis. We decided it was getting really chilly and needed to get warm, so we headed back to that bus station where everything was warm. We sat in the bus station for about 45 minutes and talked and noticed that there were 2 other people who were homeless sleeping-one at a table and the other on the floor in the corner. It was so surreal to see that it really does happen just as in the movies. As we sat there, we just talked and watched a little television, at which point we an announcement came up on the overhead thing and they stated they were doing a security check and would be coming around to check tickets. We looked at each other and asked what we should do and we decided to stay and see what they said. They came around and asked for our tickets, at which point we told them we didn’t have any and they asked us to leave. We asked why since we were just trying to get warm and they said we just needed to leave and told us to not come back. They watched us as we left the station and headed back into the cold. At this point was really where I realized that the homeless are really targeted and that is when I really felt neglected and put down and horrible. We were just kicked out of a place where we were not causing any trouble, and just wanted to get warm and had no where to go. It was a very crazy experience. We then headed to the library that was like 8 blocks away and saw that it was closed which was really bad because we needed to find something to do all day, it was really crazy because we walked so far just to find it was closed. We then headed back to 16th Street Mall, where it was more daylight and people were walking around. We decided to go into Starbucks where we would ask for a phone book and see if we could get an address for a place called Urban Peak where homeless teens go, but they didn’t have a phonebook, but we did take some free samples because we were starving. We then decided that we would go to other Starbucks because we thought we could get some more samples but alas, no one else had any! It was lame!
We then headed to Barnes and Noble to get a phonebook, and while we were there looking at the phonebook, the guy kept rushing us and really wanted us out of there because we didn’t fit in the traditional stereotype of having money and being properly “dressed.” After leaving there and being rushed, again I felt pressured and unwanted. It was a really hard thing to come across and really think about. I was having a hard time understanding what to do with myself and who would actually accept us for who we were, not what we looked like. While walking down 16th Street Mall, again, the only people that would look at us were the homeless, and everyone else seemed to do a double take or walk far around us. The homeless only nicely greeted us. Which was another eye opening experience. We sat on a bench and recollected our experience with each other and listened to two others talk about their life. They seemed to “look” homeless, but one of them kept talking about his apartment and refrigerator, so who knows, but that also fits into the stereotype of looking like something, which apparently was what we looked like. We decided to head back to Samaritan House for lunch around noon and when we go there we observed what was going on and how the lines looked. We felt guilty about taking their food… someone who truly needed it would be denied it because we took it, so we just headed back to our home where we could get food.
It was so different to think that we were only out there as long as we wanted to be and could go back home whenever we choose but the actual homeless could not. They had to live like that day after day. They struggled daily. It was an amazing weekend and so many of my thoughts have changed about homelessness and I really believe so much happened that changed everyone’s view. Without this experience I really do believe that I would not be the person I am today writing this, I believe I would still be an arrogant person about homelessness. I really think that people need to open their eyes about what the world is going through and see that the homeless are not out there to cause trouble, they just want to survive.
We also participated in a protest against School of America’s and that was the most ridiculous thing I have ever participated in, in my life. We thought we would be protesting with a group of people that had been affected by School of Americas and others, but instead it was a bunch of white arrogant people pretending like they knew what they were fighting for and they really did not. I did not feel wanted there or comfortable protesting with these people, so 5 of us decided that we would head back to where we were staying because we did not want to be part of this and it was horrible. They were not happy with us when they arrived to our house at the end of the protest. I really didn’t care but we did participate in the last part of the thing where they read off names of the people who had been killed by these graduates of the School of Americas… that was interesting, could have been better but alas, it was not. I believe that if they had just gone through the experience we did with the emergent experience they would have approached this protest very differently, or if we hadn’t done the experience, I believe we would have approached it differently and we wouldn’t have felt so uncomfortable supporting this, but with out experience it just left us uneasy.
Monday November 24th:
We got up around 8am and made lunches for the homeless out of the leftover food we had stored over the week. We had extra bagels, PB&J, and some fruit. We then packed the cars and headed down to a park and handed it all out. It was also a nice experience and we came across some people that really thought we were a religious group and kept telling us to be on our own. We could only save ourselves if we were individuals and that following and listening and conforming to what the people say to do is bad. Yeah, we already know that….which would be why we aren’t part of religious groups, but if I were them, I believe I would also think we were religious because that is generally who comes out to help the homeless. I encountered my first smell of pot and that was an experience….it really stinks, just for you all to know! Haha! I thought I was going to throw up with the smell as he smoked it and we sat there listening to him talk about Philosophy and stuff.
We then headed home around noon. I was extremely glad to be home, but I learned so much and really bonded with the people in my group that it was bittersweet!!
Links:
Earthlinks: http://www.earthlinks-colorado.org/
School of Americas: http://www.soaw.org/type.php?type=8
..
