St Vincent Depaul

I was pretty anxious to start my service learning at St. Vincent Depaul because my work and school schedules finally allotted me some time to do so. From talking to classmates about their experiences, I really wanted to start my service and try to connect with a faith community. When I first got there, I talked with the first employee I saw. I told her who I was and that I was there to meet with Kurt (I believe his title is "director".) A goal of mine was to try to get the first person I came into contact with to open up to me a little bit. So, I started probing her for answers about what exactly they did there, what all occurs in terms of donations, buying of goods, redistribution of money from the goods sold, food vouchers, item vouchers, etc. I immediately found a sense of pride in the fact that items I had donated before were used in two ways, sold to those that can afford to buy them cheaply, and then that money was allotted to people who cannot afford clothes and food so they could have such necessities of life.

I worked a lot of the day with a girl about 8 years younger than me, she is a new employee there. She dropped out of high school about two years ago, and this is her first job so that she can "pay some rent." She also wants to save some money for the GED, which I was very happy to hear. For the most part, I opened bags of donated clothes, put shoes in a bin, purses in a bin, and then all the clothes into the bailer and compacted them. I noticed the pace of the other volunteers/employees to be some what slow, kind of like the overnight stocking shift at target, just floating through the shift. I was moving so much faster than everyone, but they appreciated it I think, because I was doing some of their work anyway. Some conversations I had were similar to other classmates, about community service sanctioned by the courts or by school, how many hours, etc. I was kind of distraught that some people made comments like, oh thats not too bad a number of hours, or that will go by real quick. I was hoping they would be more rooted in the community and WANT it to be more hours so that I can be a part of the community more!
In doing this work, I felt a sense of meaning to what I was doing. Someone, somewhere, that needs clothes, might get them a little bit sooner because I was helping sort through all the bags of donations. Cold Iowa winter is approaching, I know it can be bad.

I will be going back to complete my hours next week, and probably go a few times extra after that. I want to be able to talk to some of the people that buy the items on the sales floors, and help them in any way that I can, as well as talk to a few other employees/volunteers and see why they choose to work at St. Vincent Depaul. I also hope to continue to talk with the girl that I worked with, to help her figure her life out in some way possibly, she is a good kid, just needs some guidance. From the start of our work, I thought about my regrets of not continuing to earn my degree in Education, to make a difference in the schools. I Guess my degree that I am earning in Business will have to be used for something meaningful, for me to feel successful with it.

A goal I have is to find out more about the community that exists at St. Vincent Depaul, because everyone does talk to everyone else and they are all there for a reason, I think people will talk to me if I ask questions and share about myself as well.