Monday's Update!

Monday Update:

(Sorry it’s late, we have limited internet access.)

As always, today was an exciting day in the life of a Coe student staying in New York!

We began our day far too early as we left the church at 7:15 to be in lower Manhattan at YSOP, the organization we’re working with, by 8am. First we had a quick breakfast, a short history of YSOP, statistics about homelessness and hunger in NYC, and safety tips on the subway and at our service sites.

One group at a soup kitchen in the Bronx, Part of the Solution (POTS).

YSOP is an organization that focusses on homelessness and hunger outreach. They work to find groups sites to serve through while they stay in NYC. They explained the difference between homeless and hungry people, saying that homeless people are those without proper housing. In New York City, there are about 40,000 people who are homeless. Of that number, 16,000 are under age 18. This statistic only includes people who have stayed in city-run shelters, not anyone who stays on the streets or in private or religiously-affiliated shelters.

Hungry people are those who do not have access to adequate amounts of food sometimes or always. All homeless people are automatically considered hungry because if they don’t have housing, they probably don’t have food. Housing is considered the first thing anyone would choose in such their situation.

As a group, we discussed why people might be homeless or hungry, and responses ranged from disabilities prevent people from accurate housing to natural disasters to unemployed or underemployed to things like family issues and domestic violence. It was a helpful beginning to our service experience to know a little about the population and statistics of those we were serving.

Soon we were off to our respective NYC organizations. All of our groups were sent to a different soup kitchen or food pantry: 2 in the Bronx and 1 in Brooklyn. During reflection we talked about the food we served, the people we worked with, and a little about how we felt at each service site. We talked about choice and community and compared the soup kitchens we worked with to some that we’ve worked with in different cities like Atlanta, Chicago, and Cedar Rapids.

A common theme we found among the places we worked is that people at these shelters get a lot of choice and personalized discussions. At many soup kitchens, for example, you get what they serve you--no personalized menus, but here people get what they ask for if they make a special request. The people served at each soup kitchen seem to know each other and have personal connections with the staff who know almost everyone’s stories. It’s really interesting to compare that situation with those we’ve encountered in the past where people come in, each a little food that we would never eat, and leave without so much as a thank you.

Overall, there is general consensus among our group that homelessness and hunger are much more prevalent in NYC, which might be why it seems to be so much more accepted or perhaps less of a negative stereotype. The people we’ve talked to don’t seem to feel ashamed necessarily, but rather grateful that there are people in the world willing to help them fix a temporary issue such as hunger so that they can focus their attention on something more important than a basic human need and help themselves ultimately get out of a tough situation. In other places, people don’t seem as open to accepting their situations.

We ended our day at Times Square seeing many shops and so many lights. It was a bit cold, but we pressed on and made it back to the church safely to wake up bright and early for another day of service.