VanVu

Van Vu

Sally H. Campbell

SOWK 350

Spring 2009

Entry for March 10th, 2009

As usual, we got up and had a quick breakfast, then went to the Nashville Rescue Mission. Today was the first time our team worked on campus. The campus is located right behind the building that we often worked in. We might cross through a narrow pathway that smelt tremendously bad due to the random pees. I had to hold my nose in order to pass it.

The campus was not too large. It had only one big building. The campus’ leader gave us a tour around the whole campus. Firstly, we went to the waiting room. They also used the waiting room as the games room as well. At this time, this room was full of people. Some of them were sleeping; the others were reading books, playing games or watching movies. After that, we went to a corridor that its walls were full of artworks. These artworks were the products of the homeless people here. They were so nice and valuable that they made the corridor look as if it were an actual art gallery. The room at the end of the corridor was the center’s post office. The center gave each member a post office’s address so that the homeless people could receive their important paperwork such as bills, payments and especially was the mail from employers that they applied for a job. The officers here also offered consultants and counselor for members to help them get out of the homelessness and unemployment. The next room that we stopped by was a class. The center encouraged the homeless people to study by opening many classes which were directly related to the future jobs of homeless people. It also encouraged its members to go to class by the accumulate points each time they went to class, which were able to convert into money or the prior rights of using many facilities in the center. Right next to the class was the art room where the members went to do artwork. The room had only seven people at this time and all of them were drawing or painting. The room’s ceiling hung up plentiful of small wood models, such as many different kinds of airplane or animals. The artworks were absolutely pretty and if I didn’t know about that, maybe I couldn’t imagine that they were created by the homeless people. After leaving the art room, we went to the dinning room and the dormitory. The campus now looked like a small society with all of the necessary facilities for human development. I wished in the near future, my country also had this kind of campus to help the homeless people. The campus was almost perfect. However, it still needed some more innovations. I have thought that if it could create the jobs for the homeless people, give them a chance to work as the campus’ officers or let them do the works such as farm works, painting or transporting, so this model of center would be really perfect.

Today my work was painting the bathroom. Mai, Tung and I painted the room together. Mai used the brush and I used the rolls. I really didn’t pay much attention to the painted wall behind me and kept touching it. My overcoat and my pans were all yellow. Because the paint was water-based so I immediately took off my overcoat and washed it. It ended up totally wet.

In the afternoon, we climbed up to the hill and helped the guys cut down dry branches and putting them into the trash bags. It was really so cool up here that I felt absolutely comfortable. However, the comfortable feeling also made me feel totally sleepy. 5:00 pm, we left the campus and came back to the motel.