YSOP 2013 - Day4

   LOL today was great! Again, our big group was split and we headed our separate ways early in the morning. The Black team, headed to Capital Area Food Bank, got off to an early start, leaving the church around 8:00. The Red team, however, got the luxury of remaining in their warm beds for another hour and a half. Once properly clothed and fed, the amazing Red team, again led by the fearless Mr. Palyo, began their journey to Rachel’s Women’s Center at around 9:30. After walking an arduous 10 blocks, we arrived at our destination.  Once a former home, Rachel’s Women Center is dedicated to helping homeless women turn their lives around and re-enter society. By providing meals and fun group activities and other services (such as makeovers), many women have greatly improved their lives. Mr. Palyo, CJ, and Catherine’s first job was to go outside and weed in the yard. But after only a few minutes, they had finished their duty and joined the rest of us upstairs. Our main task for the day was taking inventory and organizing an entire pantry upstairs that was full of canned and non-perishable items. Aven was in charge of writing down everything in the pantry and Kelsey and John were retrieving items from the shelves. There was an array of goods stored in the pantry, from many different types of beans to bamboo shoots to a zillion cans of chicken noodle soup! The process of taking down each and every can and separating them into categories was a slow one, but once CJ and Catherine joined us, the process went much faster (due to the fact that CJ began tossing the cans to anyone who was ready to catch). Our job was done in no time! We then went downstairs to watch a video about Rachel’s Women Center. After the brief movie, we sat around and socialized with some of the women. We also met the cutest 5 year old girl named Paris. Shy at first, she quickly came out of her shell and proceeded to draw each and every one of us a picture and even attempted to write our names. This simple gesture greatly brightened our day! After saying goodbye to our new friends, we returned to the church.

            The superb, glamorous, and @®†$¥ (artsy) Black Team, on the other hand, had a long bus ride to Brookland (we go hard). We served at the Capital Area Food Bank. After our quick shuttle ride from the bus stop, we arrived eager to sort cans and make a difference in peoples’ lives, but much to our dismay, we did not have the proper forms to go back into the heavy lifting area.

The task for the day prior to the arrival of our waivers.

 Eventually, after a building tour, we were able to work in the back room.*

 We were amazed to learn that they packaged and sorted over 33 million pounds of goods per year! There, we unloaded many Chiquita Banana boxes (bananas not included) full of anything from paper towels to flammable aerosol cans to Hamburger Helper. We sorted these various items, donated by stores such as Walmart, Whole Foods, and Safeway. For the most part, these goods were not quite shelf-worthy at these superstores, but were still usable. After sorting for a few hours, we realized that somebody (some other dude, not one of us I promise) had accidentally put the refried and baked beans in the wrong basket. In effect, we had to completely relocate half of the cans in that bin, via an assembly line, which showed fabulous, impeccable, and absolutely flawless teamwork. 

Moving up from the plastic bag task!

The fantabulous, scintillating, and intelligent Black Team returned home, befriending a super cool nurse on the bus ride home, with whom we discussed everything from our service project to the Redskin’s chances this season. Working at the food bank was an extraordinarily fun experience for all of us!!  <3

After both groups had returned to the church, we deflated most of the air mattresses in our area (by accident and on purpose), then headed downstairs for a reflection period with Sarah, the YSOP program director in DC. During this period, we were given the scenario of Tina Jones, a single mother of two who is without a home or job. Using the monthly budget of $413 from the government and $485 in food stamps, we attempted to cover the basic needs such as housing, food, clothes, transportation, and childcare. This activity was based off of a true situation, and was an eye-opening experience for all of us. It made the issues that people experiencing homelessness face much more real to us, and made us appreciate all of the blessings that we have.

Struggling with tough decisions.

Sarah provides some insight.

After the activity, we hit the Mall  (not the shopping type).

Taking on the city. We tend to forget that others might be using the sidewalk too ...nothing that a short discussion on "side-walk etiquette" couldn't resolve!

We toured the Smithsonian museums located on the National Mall for a few hours. Some of our favorites were the Air and Space Museum, the American History Museum, and the National Art Museum. We then headed to We the Pizza, and enjoyed a delicious meal of pizza pies.

Yum yum!!!

 After dinner we hopped aboard the metro and took tons of artsy pictures of the floor and CJ’s nosebleeds (#CJprobz).

We got off the metro and witnessed Jack’s cray cray parkour skillz, swinging from tree to tree, a true modern-day Tarzan.

When John tried to awesomely do some swagalicious moves, he got stuck on a twenty-foot barbed wire laced wall and had to run a block in the opposite direction to get off of it.

This time our destination was the other end of the mall where we visited the Lincoln Memorial, took lots of pictures, and moved on to visit a few other memorials, such as the Vietnam War Memorial, the World War II Memorial, and the Washington Monument.

Somehow, two of us (who shall remain nameless) managed to miss the giant, pencil-like obelisk (our meeting place) visible from all over DC and were MIA for a good ten minutes. However, the group was reunited and we began the trek back to the church. On the way home, we met a nice, friendly, and heartwarming homeless man sitting on the steps of the church. We all said hi and gave him a wave, and he popped up and started talking to us. He said he was very grateful that we were not scared of him and that we treated him with respect. That made us feel warm and fuzzy on the inside and made us realize the impact of a simple hello to a member of the homeless community. He then told us that he was two months HIV positive, but 785 days clean of alcohol and heroin, which is an impressive feat for a former addict. He advertised a fundraiser for a homeless shelter, to which a few of us gave a few dollars. We said goodbye and turned to go, but he stopped us because John had dropped his “beautiful” smile. It was a fun-filled day for all of us, yay!

*A special thanks to our parents today. YSOP had not been informed that Capital Area Food Bank had changed their requirements for youth service. My signature as a "guardian" was not accepted and all our parents were quick to download a form and fax, email or take a picture of the form and send it to the volunteer coordinator thus allowing our kids to have a meaningful service experience. Thank you so much!! Karen

By Aven, Peyton, and Ellie <3 #YOLO #SWAG