New location

"Students, in the course of their formation, must let the gritty reality of this world into their lives, so they can learn to feel it, think about it critically, respond to its suffering and engage it constructively. They should learn to perceive, think, judge, choose, and act for the rights of others, especially the disadvantaged and oppressed." Do you see your doctoral level service learning experience contributing in any way to that quote? How?

As I sat in my car when minutes turned to an hour, I realized no one was coming to serve. The next day, I tried again....I failed to see anyone open the food warehouse. Where could everyone be...I thought? Where is Mrs. Kathryn? Where is Larry? I decided to go home and make a call to my director. What I found, when she returned my call days later, was the food factory had been closed and consolidated to the main Golden Harvest location. I found out that I have to have a scheduled appointment to come and serve. No more are the days that you could drop in at your convenience for an hour or an entire day. Because of the budget and limited spacing it was by scheduled appointment only. I wanted to get my service learning out of the way during the transition period of Fall Class 1 to Fall Class 2 since this is the time when it is the least busy in the work load. As a DNP student, I found the harsh reality of budgetary constraints compromising the mission of the food bank. With limited resources and money to run different operations of the Food Bank, consolidation was the answer to conserve resources. It is very sad to me that as jobs are lost, the unemployment rate is soaring, and the Food Bank is starting to lose footing in the fight against hunger because the food ration is getting scarce with donations plumenting. I even found that they had let Mrs. Kathryn go....they explained that she retired. To me, it was a very significant loss of someone who provided the needed guidance and rally of the volunteers. The new surroundings were small and everyone seemed to be in each other's way as we navigated through the food to be sorted. I can definately see why now it is by appointment only. I feel that since the space is smaller, it can only handle a small fraction of the volunteers that used to serve. I am very afraid that folks will stop volunteering because they will feel as they are not needed or since it is by appointments it will less likely to fit into their schedule and be more inconvenient. Larry, is still trying to navigate the new facility with the spacing that is required to accomplish the mission with the limited resources of volunteers. He is very "thankful to have a job", he explains.

On the first day back, I met Larry....a friendly warm smile enveloped me. That day I was in charge of sorting can items and looking for expiration dates. After the cans were sorted, cleaned, and the integrity of the can was checked. Then, it was time to put it in the proper storage container. On this particular day, I had two different helpers. One person was pursuing her teaching degree in which they incorporate service learning into their lesson plan and the other team member was working off probationary hours. Two very different walks of life with very different reasons for being apart of the plan, but on the same path of giving of oneself to the solid mission of hunger. We managed to accomplish two huge crates of food that particular day and put a dent in the mission.

Thanks-Krista