Final Blog Post |Baylee Brown

 

The Alternative Spring Break class has opened my eyes and heart to a social injustice that, before taking the class, I did not know much about.  I knew hunger and homelessness was a problem but I didn’t know to what magnitude, or how I could help and serve people. I remember learning about the Alternative Spring Break and thinking about how cool it would be to do a week long service experience, and that it would be a great opportunity for me to learn about a subject I knew little about.  Spending a whole semester, spring break, and a lot of Tuesdays immersing myself in knowledge surrounding hunger and homelessness helped me to truly understand this issue. It has opened my eyes to the injustices and stigmas, that surround people who are homeless and people who are hungry, and how we can help people understand.   I love to see how a class can change my perspective on so many things, and how it can change the perspective of many more students to come.

Nothing could have prepared me for the things I would see and experience while in Washington, D.C.  This class educated me with the facts, and self reflections required before going on this trip but nothing prepared me for the emotions I would have from working with people directly. This most important thing our class taught me was to remove the stigmas that I had, and to go into our trip with and open mind and understanding of my privileges.  I think when you can understand these things about yourself, you can serve others and really reflect on how they are affected by the situation that they are in.  I think this class really helped me realize that when serving others, I need to listen, and understand that there are a lot of things that lead them to where they are now, and none of those being easily reversible. A lot of these reason being because unforeseen circumstances with jobs, illness, family, and various other reasons. It not because they are too lazy to get a job, because while at Martha’s Outfitters I helped a man find the necessary things for a job interview. He really wanted out of homelessness and he was actively trying, people who are homeless aren’t lazy it just hard to “put your boots on” when you don’t have any. This example really resonates with me because I think it is a perfect example that can disprove a common stigma.  This class prepared me for where my mind should be before going, but not the thoughts and feelings I was going to have while on our trip.

With taking our class I think I got a firm grasp on what my privileges are, and this whole semester has changed my outlook on my privilege, it has made me face it. I don’t think privilege is a bad thing, it is something to be incredibly thankful for. I just had to understand that with my privilege I can help other who don’t have the same as me, standing beside them and fighting for them. My privileges have helped me get to where I am today, I have never had to worry about whether or not I was going to eat dinner.  Whether I was going to have a roof over my head next week.  I have been able to make consistent and meaningful relationships with others because I had been in one place my entire life.  That I am in a room right now, with a roof over my head, typing this on a laptop, having finished dinner two hours ago. While talking to one of my coworkers about my trip, she was talking about how she volunteers at a shelter often.  She explained to me how she realized that one thing a lot of people in these shelter didn’t have, it was a support system, someone to fall back on if everything went wrong. A family, who could take them in at their darkest times. That is when it dawned on me, one of my biggest privileges is having people to help me if I were to suddenly loose everything, my parents would support me, my family would support me, and my friends would support me. I have all of these things to fall back on if something goes wrong, I’m not saying I will never be homeless because you honestly never know what happens. I have people who would be willing to help me if I needed help.  That is why service is so important, while we can’t reverse the situation they are in, we can try to make it a little easier by showing people compassion and humility.

Three Last Thoughts |Baylee Brown

Getting back into the groove proved to be very difficult, I woke up this morning, got ready, and went to work.  The instant I walked into the elementary school, it hit me, spring break really is over, and all this anticipation I had for the trip is over. I’m not saying I dreaded going back to work, I was excited to see all the kids, but I was longing for the growth and learning that I achieved while in Washington D.C.  That is also when I thought that I don’t need to be somewhere else to learn about and serve my community, and I can bring the things I have learned from that community into my own. I can use the knowledge and reflection on my time in Washington D.C. and apply it the community I am currently living, hopefully one day I can carry those lessons into communities I find myself living in, in the future. If I wrote about every instance something or someone touched me while in Washington D.C.  this would be an incredibly long post. For the rest of this post I have summed up everything in three words or phrases,  and why those are so important. (or tried to, at least.)

Dignity, on the first day at Martha’s Table and throughout the trip we learned about how dignity is such an important aspect of homelessness, hunger, and poverty.  The type of dignity I am talking about is giving people the best of the best, being respectful, and meaningful behind your intentions. Anyone can act with dignity, but some people need to be given the extra chance to have the most important things or build up what they feel is dignity for themselves, and that can be an array of different things. . For example, at Martha’s Table they only sold things that were in the best condition, not things with holes, smells, or stains.  Having those things when you normally don’t make you feel like a new person, something almost new but clean and nice looking can mean the world to someone.  This also makes me think of how treating someone with the respect that they deserve, gives them so much dignity. It just honestly seems like the right things to do, imagine living a life where no one wants to make eye contact with you, talk to you, or if you had to go six months without someone saying your name. There is not much dignity in that, is there? The number one cause of homelessness is housing not being affordable, it not because they are lazy, an addict, or have a mental illness. People don’t want to be in that situation any more than they already are, so next time smile and say hi, engage in a conversation if you feel comfortable. The next time you talk about a person who is homeless, make sure not to use the term “homeless person” instead use “person who is homeless,” remember that they are a person first and deserve the upmost dignity and respect that you or I do.

Everything is not what it seams, now you may be confused by this statement and I will explain this to you the best I can. When I think back to the day where we went to Drew Elementary School to tutor kids through Reading Partners, your first thought may be “Why would they need to be in an elementary school? That seems like such and odd service site.” Well, here is why, the first thing is poverty and homelessness doesn’t just affect a single person, it can affect an entire family. In fact it is much more a problem than you may think, when you think of the average age of someone who is homeless you would think, “Oh, well all the people who are homeless I have seen, are older people!”  That is wrong the average age of homeless person in Washington D.C. is eight years old, and while doing research to see the number in Wichita I could not find one.  The face of homelessness and hunger can be anyone, this is something I learned.  So getting back to working in the school, you learn that a lot of things can be affected by poverty such as low literacy levels.  One question I asked was “How do you get parents involved in their child’s learning, how do you encourage them to help their child learn?”  The supervisor told us that a lot of the kids parents are very involved, however it comes down to if the parent needs to go out and work their night shift job to keep their family fed. There are many other factors that contribute to this, not just that one. Most of the time these families want what is best for their children, and sometimes they have to make unthinkable sacrifices. Homelessness, hunger, and poverty, can happen to any of use, and is in fact happening to a lot of people you wouldn’t even expect.

Educate, Listen, Learn. I can’t even begin how to stress, how important these are in many aspects of life, and social injustices. My question is how can a person have so many stereo types, stigma, and opinions in their head if they have never experienced these events for themselves.  This might be because we were once told things and they stuck with us, or years of seeing things in the news gives you a sour taste in your mouth on a certain subject, or you saw one bad thing and all of a sudden everyone like that is bad.  If there is one thing this trip has taught me, is to have an open mind towards ideas, and things that are out of my comfort zone.  If I had never took the time to educate myself before going on this trip, I would have gone in with all sorts of stereo types about people who are homeless or in poverty with all the stigmas and stereo types everyone seems to have. I educated myself (with the help of wonderful mentors and classmates) and went in with the attitude of “I am hear to listen and learn.”  Since, I listened to voices that were unlike my own, I understood.  Maybe in life, thats all we need to do, we need to listen, sit down, and talk to the people these things are happening to.  This could mean for any social injustice, how can you form an opinion if you have never personally experienced it or talked to someone who has?  You can’t come to a conclusion about something just because you have read about it in the newspaper or watched it on the news.  The best way to get the real story is to talk to the people the story is about. As a result of all of this you learn, and that is a beautiful thing.  Once you have educated yourself, listened, and learned; FIGHT for these people, serve them, and let everyone know what you experienced. I can’t begin to tell you how thankful I am for this experience, and this opportunity I have gotten to learn and meet wonderful people.  I encourage everyone to take the step further and listen, listen and learn to understand.

Rainy Day Exploring | Baylee Brown

Today was the last day in Washington, D.C. and we were able to spend this day exploring the area. At 6:30 in the morning a group of us woke up to walk to the Jefferson Memorial to watch the sunrise and see the cherry blossoms. We started walking and most of the monuments were empty so we ended up at the Washington Memorial, but it was so cold!  Once we got to the Jefferson Memorial we sat down, talked, and watched people running and biking by.  It was very relaxing, and as the sun came up we were able to see the cherry blossoms and how beautiful they were

Kellie, Shayla, and I split off from the group and went to find the National Archives only to find they didn’t open until 10 and that was the time we were leaving for Arlington National Cemetery.  We found ourselves at the Smithsonian Castle which is a visiting center, but the outside of it was beautiful.  We then departed toward the Church, where we left for Arlington, with Stephanie, Kellie, Shayla, Hayden, and I.
Once at Arlington it was a very cool and touching experience.  It was raining hard when we arrived so our first goal was to make it up to the Arlington House to stay dry from the rain.  On the way we stopped off at J.F.K’s burial site, and saw the eternal flame. Across from there was a multitude of quotes by the former president, and I love seeing how relevant the quotes are today.  Once we got up to the Arlington House, it was empty no one was there to look around and the Volunteer’s instantly started rattling off facts about the house.  We even got a private tour of entire house, which they only give on Saturdays. The only thing they don’t show is the attic, which we got to see. The attic was used to house soldiers from the Civil War. On one of the supporting beams  it had a name of the soldier and the year 1862.

Once we got back to Arlington we realized we had time to go to the National Archives, for a whole 30 minutes.  That was enough time to get to see the Declaration of Independence, Bill of Rights, and The Constitution.  We had to run back to the church, just in time for us to leave.  Overall, today was a great experience to get to really take time and see some of the farther away monuments.  I am really going to miss Washington, D.C. I wish I never had to leave.  Come back in two days for the post 48 hour reflection, to really see my final thoughts on the trip.

Day 3/4 | Baylee Brown

This post is going to be a little bit about day three and day four of our service trip! Yesterday, we went to Food and Friends. This is an organization that supplies meals for people who are have chronic illnesses, the organization delivers hot meals, grocieries, and other food items people may need. This organization allows people who can’t get up and make dinner or lunch themselves, to really have a home cookies quality meal. The coolest thing was that Food and Friends packaged their meals to a variety of nutritional need that vary from heart healthy, allergy friendly, diabetic, and puréed food options. When we arrived they instantly put us to work packaging the food that was being delivered that day. We loaded them onto carts and they were rolled out to the cars for delivery. This organization was very dependent of volunteers, even the drivers were doing this on a volunteer base and were not paid employees. They staff was so friendly and thankful for our service it was pretty cool!

We got done at Food and Friends at about 12, and lucky for us we got to explore the new National Museum of African American History and Culture. I have to mention that the wait list for groups to go is two years long, there are only a handful of tickets they hand out online, and at the door.  We got up extra early to snag online tickets, and our whole group was able to attend! If you are ever in DC that Museum is amazing, and I highly suggest it! There were even a few things about Kansas in there!

Day four is our last day of service and I must say it is hard to think about going back home! Today we attended Central Union Mission, which is a faith based emergency shelter. Awesome fact is this is the longest running organization in Washington D.C. It is been around since he late 1800s, because when soldiers can back from the war, injured, sick, and tired they would offer them a place to sleep and a hot meal! It is mainly for men but they do accept families, it supplies temporary shelter and more long term shelter. In order for the men to get the more long term shelter they have to take classes on various subjects including; job training, spiritual transformation program, alcohol and drug counseling, and various other programs. We first started off in the temporary shelter making beds, folding sheets, towels, and sorting bed linens. Throughout the time some men would walk in and out of the room, and they were so thankful for everything we were doing. After that we moved in to serving lunch, and that was an awesome experience! We served soup, bread, and salad, I got to scoop the soup! I thought it was really awesome how thankful they were for our service. At all the sites I have been at they expressed their gratitude often. Most of our sites have been centered around direct service, this site made me feel like something I was doing really could change someone’s day. It made my day to see how thankful people were, when I thought it was something small.

Drew Elementary School |Baylee Brown

Day 2 of service was awesome, we were placed in an elementary school in ward 7!  We got up bright and early and left the church at 7:50ish (we tried to leave in time.)   We first walked to the Metro Subway station, me being a small town Kansas kid found this one of the coolest things ever. We then got off the train 9 stops later, and took the bust for 14 stops. We arrived at the elementary school where we found out what we were doing for the day!

We volunteered with Americore and their Reading Partners program, where we tutored a couple different kid.  We worked on literacy, phonological skills, and various other things.  I found this service opportunity the coolest because in Wichita I work in a school very similar to Drew Elementary School. It is a Title I School, and we got to compare similarities between Wichita Public Schools and D.C. Public Schools. Literacy is a big problem in D.C. And at first I was curious as to why this pertained homelessness and hunger. We learned that with poverty become low literacy levels and that D.C. has a big problem with this in their lower income school. It was awesome to see how the kids really wanted to learn and were eager to work with us! I worked with a kindergartener and a first grader, and they were the sweetest kids ever. This service experience hit close because it was very similar to the work I want to do when I graduate from school. It was awesome to see how something as simple as what we did can really help and brighten a community! 

The last thing we did of the evening was we teamed up with another University from Wisconsin, to prepare a dinner for the community. We made sloppy joes, coleslaw, salad, cornbread, and had ice cream and brownies for desert. The awesome thing about this experience was that we it wasn’t like a soup kitchen, we ate with our guests. We got to mingle with various people from the community. This dinner provided was for people who weren’t only homeless, also for people who just needed a hot meal. They have some regulars and I sat at a table with three of them! They instantly made me feel like we were great friends, they were so talkative, friendly, and loud! They asked me so many different questions about Kansas, they also had so many insightful things to share. The one thing they made me realize that if you have something you love really hold on to it, no matter what it is. For example, Re-Re was the lady that was eating dinner at my table, had a love for make-up. This dinner was incredibly eye opening for me, because I did have a stereotype in my mind that was completely shattered. It also made me realize that in order to truly understand someone, you HAVE to engage is conversation, that is the only way you are truly going to understand. 

I have really have loved this opportunity so far, and there have been many eye opening moments. I AM READY TO SERVE TOMORROW!!!

Martha’s Table: Day One| Baylee Brown

Today was the first day of service is Washington, DC! From start to finish this day we an amazing learning experience that consisted of me stepping out of my comfort zone, meeting new people, and just a remind that humilty is still out there! We started out the day with an orientation by YSOP, they introduced into what the city was like with homelessness and hunger. A lot of it we already learned in our classes, but we did learn some new interesting facts geared more towards the city itself. The most alarming fact I learned was the average age of homelessness in Washington, DC is 8 years old. This revealed how the city has a if homelessness problem with families, that is beyond crazy to me. If the average age is 8, imagine how many kids even younger than that face hunger and homelessness everyday. This really makes me thankful for I blessed I am for how I have grown up, and the thing I received from my families hard work. It is very heartbreaking that these families have to face these challenges everyday, it is so hard for them to come out of it.

After orientation we went to our first service site, my group went to an organization call Martha’s table. Which supplies people with child care, food, and clothes. We got to work in the part that was called Martha’s Outfitters, it supplies people with cheap clothing options that are very high end! Let’s just say a Burberry suit and pants was sold for only 10 dollars. Three of us ended up helping out with this program called Martha’s outlet, it’s a program where people can come and get free clothes, all they need is some form of ID. It just so happens that it’s happens once every three months, and we were there the day it was open.  The costumer could get 3 shirts, 3 pairs of pants, a pair of shoes, a jacket, and multiple toiletries. The customer could get some for their entire family, for example if the said they were shopping for a 3 year old, 5 year old, and themselves; they would have to have 9 shirts, 9 pairs of pants, 3 shoes, and so on…. we would have to check to make sure they were shopping for that age group. I thought the coolest thing out of this was that the organization did not turn anyone down and trusted their customers. In turn they respect the organizations, no one took advantage of the system. Everyone got what they really needed, and you could see how much it brightened and affected people’s days. I had one man thank me so much for what I had done for him, and he told me he had a job interview that day. He really wanted to change is life and I could see that in his character. Overall it was and awesome first day of service!

We got back to YSOP head quarters at about 3 and had a guest speaker, Marvin Turner. He was the director Housing an Urban Development in Washington, D.C. Area all the way to some counties in Virginia. We got to learn about housing programs for the city, and how the political atmosphere is affecting it. It was amazing to see someone who truly loves what they do, and really wants to make a change in their community.

After that we ate dinner District Taco, and explored the city from Georgetown all the way to the National Mall (all of the monuments.) After a long day it is time for bed, tomorrow we will be at a school reading to kids. I can’t wait to see what I learn tomorrow! 

Final Boarding Call | Baylee Brown

I honestly can’t describe how excited I am as this exact moment.  In about an hour and a half I will be loading up to head to the airport, hopping on a plane, and heading to Washington, DC!  This past week has been a whirlwind of emotions, between midterms, packing, cleaning, and just life.  Throughout the week a lot of people have been asking me “Baylee, are you excited for your Alternative Spring Break Trip?”  For some reason all I can say is I’m nervous, I’m the type of person who feels comfort in knowing exactly what is going on.  However, there is so much uncertainty with what I will be doing for the week, I won’t find out until tomorrow! Although, I am nervous about stepping out of my comfort zone and learning more about homelessness and hunger. I have to remind myself that this experience is for me to learn and grow as a person, but most importantly I am going there to serve the community and it’s members.  The one thing I am going to tell myself during this trip is ” You are here to serve, you are here to learn, and you are here to help yourself and help other people grow.”

Lady Gaga | Baylee Brown

Lady Gage inspires me because she is always true to who she wants to be, stands up for what she believes, champions for self love, human rights, love and acceptantance, and empowerment. Someone once asked me “If you could eat dinner with anyone, who would you eat with?”  I told them Lady Gaga, because I believe that you should always strive to be an individual and always to shoot for the dreams that you have.  She does too, many people told her before she started her career that she was going to be nothing and she was going to fail.  Here she is today, she came through adversity and hate, to prove that she could be whatever and whomever she wanted. I hope that one day I can have the strength to do the same, to help others, to be a positive role model, and to let them know that some one does care.

Is Reflection Important? | Baylee Brown

Typically, after a challenging day, test, or class; I like to sit and reflect on things I could have done better or didn’t understand.  If I have an especially hard time understanding a new concept or want to bounce ideas off of others, I like to reflect in a group of my peers.  If it is important in my school work and everyday life, it is also important in service learning as well.  That is the thing that college and service learning have in common, you are spending your time learning and expanding your knowledge in a certain area or subject. The only difference is when I finish a test, I tend to drop the conversation or expanding of my knowledge on that area.  However, in service learning there is always opportunity to grow and expand your knowledge further by asking yourself the question; “So what now?”

At any point in time before, during, or after your service learning experience, that question may arise regarding what you or your fellow peers can do next.  I believe that you can never learn or do enough to expand your knowledge on a subject, there is an endless amount of knowledge you can acquire.  You can often find answers in yourself through self reflection; by recording your feelings, experiences, and activities during your service learning opportunity.  Often times when you are doing service learning you are participating in something you are passionate about, have little knowledge of, or something to get you out of your comfort zone.  I think it is important to reflect on how things made you feel during your service learning, and the way the community made you feel.  The only way you are going to learn more from yourself is if you ask yourself the tough questions that you have to dive deep to understand and find the answer. Sometimes you can’t come to a conclusion yourself and need help from the others in your group.

Since I often find myself asking myself questions that I cannot answer, I look towards my acquaintances for answers.  That is the awesome thing about a group working together for a collective, together you can come to conclusions and answers that you may not have come up with on your own.  Everyone also has different experiences in their lives and service learning that they can contribute to the group. Reflecting in a group is great as well, you can challenge each other in a respectful manner, encourage each other, and learn from your fellow group members. Reflection is important in everyday life, and very important in service learning. You can use reflection to dive into your own mind and learn from yourself, or you can use it to expand you views through the experiences of others have obtained.  Reflection is important to the knowledge and growth, it can help someone understand the importance of service.