GraceHurney

Grace Hurney

Civic Engagement

10 March 2009

Reflections: Day 3

Today both groups volunteered at the Nashville Rescue Mission, where teams worked to organize donated clothing, prepare food, help with classes, and organize donations.

I worked mainly organizing donations in the basement. This was, overall, a fairly positive experience. We laughed and sorted and bagged clothing for the duration of the morning. There were a fair amount of very unsuitable donations- i.e. mildew towels, stained sheets, etc. I wish people would pay attention to guidelines before donating…regardless, the work was rewarding after we saw all the space we created with the packaging of the clothing. The shelter for women down the street is being renovated, so the Mission will have to house the displaced women for a few months. Thus, the men will be moved to basement, so we had to work hard to help clear out some of what must be hundreds of boxes of miscellaneous items. The second half of the day, part of my group went and cleaned the tables and chairs in the dining room. It turns out, we were doing the job of the men that lived there- they were very grateful for us that day! The men were very nice to us, thanking us for helping out and one man even knew where Concord was (just West Virginia, nothing really specific), which was a welcome surprise. My only negative moment for the day was when one of the men that lived in the Mission told us in the Dining Room that, while we were cleaning, to get over it because they cleaned the room “8 hours a day, 7 days a week, for 3 months”. If there is one thing that truly bothers me, it is being antagonized. Just because I’m of a different economic status does that mean that my heart isn’t in it nor that I don’t care- I hate it when I’m made to feel like a privileged little princess (I know I’ve said this before, but it makes me pretty angry). I understand that I am privileged, and that I have opportunities that some will never have. But that doesn’t mean that the man in the Dining Room can treat me poorly for it. I never asked to be born to the parents I have, it just happened. It doesn’t matter to me, so why should it matter to anyone else?

My random moment for the day was at the end of the day, which also doubles as a good moment (or a good series of hours). The movie/game/pizza night at the Center for Human Development was truly a blast. We ate pizza, watched Stomp the Yard, and played board games. I played Trivial Pursuit and enjoyed interacting with the participants that were in attendance- not many showed up, but the ones that did were extremely nice and very welcoming.