Yesterday was the kind of "work day" that I look forward to: a day when I take students out for encounter-based service.
Almost every month for five straight school years, I've taken kids to East 71st Street, in the Manor Park neighborhood of Chicago's south side, where the good people of St. Columbanus Parish gather as a community. I first came to their 52-weeks-a-year Wednesday food pantry with no firm plan, having never connected with anyone by phone ahead of a service-learning immersion I was planning. I showed up with a van-load of teenagers, and four hours of teamwork later, a lasting relationship was forged.
Often, students are enticed by the chance to skip class, then as they head on the trip, lightly interested in helping others, and then as they do the work and meet the people, begging to not leave, or at least begging to come back to this place very soon. Something about the combination of a simple, repeatable task -- bagging a fixed quantity of a certain fruit or vegetable, shifting boxes and unloading items, offering double-tied plastic bags, etc. -- and brief but meaningful encounters with the parish volunteers and food pantry clients alike hooks the students who serve and makes a claim on their hearts.
Each time we go, a few seemingly simple things make me think. No matter how many times I see them, they catch my eye and ear over and over again.
Differences in philosophy. Some clients will definitely try to game the system. There's a bit of luck or chance in what you come away with, as quantities are more restricted in the early going of the two hours but clients can take more toward the end. However, some will try to pass through the line twice, something that the parish volunteers gently police. We had one man try to do this, and one of the ladies reminded him he's welcome back half an hour after closing to check for extra food, but right now he needed to step away. On the other hand, some clients insist on taking only that which they know they'll use. Some will ask for a bag with fewer pieces of produce in it. Some will decline a particular fruit or vegetable that they don't eat. Some will ask what something is and ask for advice on how to prepare or cook it. There's quite the range of feelings and approaches toward this opportunity to shop for one's groceries.
"That looks bad." A volunteer offers a piece of produce, and a client judges it to be undesirable. I sometimes think, "Just take it. What's the big deal?" I'm the kind of person who doesn't need to pick a certain piece of pizza or get that particular slice of a cake, and I'll even eat something that fell on the ground. To me, it's not a big deal if I don't get the best looking piece of food. However, in this case, I'm not the one picking the food. And I will admit -- as would most of us -- that when it comes to produce, we discriminate thoroughly and select the one fruit or vegetable off the stand that looks just right, even by criteria that may be abstract or difficult to pin down. So shut up, Dan. Let them pick.
"Give me that bag." A volunteer offers a pre-bagged set of onions or apples or oranges out of a giant box, and a client prefers a different bag from the mountain of bags below. Again, I am tempted to not understand this. Again, I slow down and think. When talking about encounters with people who beg, I offer students four basic options: give money, give something (food, water, etc.), initiate conversation, and/or do nothing/ignore them. As we evaluate the options, we talk about how giving a specific item can feel like direct help toward a need, but we have to also acknowledge how it removes the choice from the person, which could slight their dignity (I ultimately recommend initiating conversation as a minimum and going from there). When choosing what to eat for lunch, most of us (excepting the uber-indecisive among us) would probably prefer having the open option to go where we please and eat whatever we want. So, too, I wager that most people in need would like to retain their autonomy in shopping. Plus, they don't know that the volunteers take the time to count out a specific amount of produce for each bag before tying it to ensure that all the bags are virtually the same.
Conversation is tricky. Serving with teens is fun because, for the most part, they are naturally social and conversational. Without much prompting, they find some comfort level and try to at least greet everyone. When I talk to the teens during and after, they always notice the variety in reception. Some clients don't respond -- they keep their head down or gesture wordlessly or look right through you. Maybe some people are ashamed to be there? Maybe they just want to get in and out? Maybe they're going through an especially rough patch and don't want to interact with people? Other clients respond -- they greet the kids back, thank them for helping, or even offer a blessing. A few clients, when asked how they're doing, will famously respond, "Oh, I'm blessed!" Then there are even others who create their own dialogue. They cruise through the lines as if they're the mayors of town, greeting other clients, welcoming volunteers like they're the hosts, and brightening the world step by step. The variety is neat, and it makes palpable the mutuality and reciprocity that encounter-based service invites. We come not to do something for them but to do something with them, and while we might think we're doing something for them, they're doing something for us, too.
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Even after almost five years, I don't know any of the clients' names, but I recognize a lot of their faces and styles. I think it'd be disingenuous to claim that I feel at home there or that I'm "one of them." But the regularity of spending Wednesday mornings with these parish volunteers and these community clients has a comfortable familiarity to it that feels like a relationship, even if unusually so. I appreciate the chance to spend time in their neighborhood and be a neighbor to all of them.
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