TreskaDunbar

Treska Dunbar

SOWK 350

March 9, 2009

Today was a long day filled with a wide variety of events and emotions. During the tour of the Nashville Rescue Mission, our tour guide told us that all the homeless individuals are required to stay outside during the day if the temperature is between 40 and 85 degrees Fahrenheit. I don’t know how they decided that these were comfortable conditions for someone to be outside all day, but I know that if it is 45 degrees outside I am still cold and if it is 75 degrees I am miserably hot. This fact reminded me of how lucky I am to not only have a home but adequate heating and air conditioning.

At the mission, I feel as though the homeless are treated so negatively by the people who claim to be helping them. There are security guards monitoring their every move. The place reminds me of a prison. Volunteers do not really get the opportunity to interact with the homeless. However, at the Campus there are no security guards or a VIP treatment for volunteers. We had to use the same doors and restrooms as the participants. The homeless were near us during the entire time and free to communicate with us if they so desired. The staff seemed to have a good positive relationship with the homeless individuals. It was interesting to me to see the differences in the two agencies and how they serve the homeless individuals.

Tonight we went back to the Campus for Human Development to watch movies, play games, and eat pizza with the participants and workers at their facility. Not only did this opportunity provide the group with the ability to interact with the homeless, but it also allowed us to relax and hang out with one another. When we get free time, we each get in our little group and go hang out and we don’t rejoin the group until it is required. So, this gave us the opportunity to get to know the other students serving with us this week on a more personal level.

The most frustrating and irritating aspect of today was getting lost in Nashville on the way back to the hotel. One of my biggest fears in driving for this trip was getting lost in this town. As I mentioned earlier this week, driving in Nashville made me uncomfortable. Today I was beginning to feel comfortable driving in this crazy big city traffic and then I got lost which increased my discomfort and lowered my self confidence in driving through Nashville.

Overall, today was a good day. I worked in the kitchen at the mission; this made me feel like I was helping provide them with the meal that would help suspend their hunger for a couple of hours. I worked with different people at different times so I got to talk to a lot of our team members and it was good to get to know some of them better.