JenniferHellems

Jennifer Hellems

SOWK 350

Dr. Campbell

Journal Entry 3

Monday March 9, 2009

Today everyone worked at the Nashville Rescue Mission. I worked on several different tasks throughout the day because it takes a lot to keep a big group of people busy.

This morning we split up into smaller groups and my group went to the clothing room and separated a lot of clothes into smalls, mediums, larges, and so on. We completed that task really quick and the guy who usually does it was so happy because he was saying that it would have taken him forever to sort the clothes. He said that he would get some of it sorted, but then they would bring a large shipment everyday at 10:30 right before he left at 11.

I was a little frustrated today when we got so much stuff done and we ended up being bored because we had nothing else to do and the few that were upstairs working in the kitchen couldn’t leave till serving time. We couldn’t go help them because there wasn’t enough room in the kitchen so we just ended up doing odd jobs around the mission.

Today I really enjoyed working with the guys at the mission most of them were really nice, but you could tell that they weren’t suppose to talk to us much. Some of the girls that I was with went out and we swept and cleaned the tables and chairs in the dining area. It turns out that that was some of the resident’s jobs so they were pretty surprised when they walked in and saw us hard at it. We told them that it was their day off and not to worry about it. Of course they were grateful and helped us finish it. One of the guys was talking to us and telling us how much he appreciated everything we have done for them and that we volunteered our time to come down and help them out.

I’m really glad that they appreciate us and realize that we are there to help them. Coming here, I wasn’t sure how some people would react to us volunteering to help them because I know some people can be very stubborn and not want help. I really enjoyed the place we were at today, but I think I liked the one Saturday better. Tomorrow we will be at a new place so we will see how that goes.