Fieldwork+Day+Sept+17+Homelessness



We took the 22 bus up to Fullerton and walked to Church of Our Saviors. Several kids had volunteered here last year, so they knew where to go. We filed into the lunch area, where Gordon Grant met us. He brought us to the sanctuary for a brief talk about the church's work. Then the pastor, Reverend Packard, talked with us about the history of this lunch program, noting how over the years the neighborhood had expressed concerns and resisted their work. At one point, a neighborhood group demanded that the Church photograph and id every person who came to lunch. The Church has declined to cooperate with demands like that, but it has otherwise worked with the local community, especially to assure them.

The main feature of the afternoon was serving lunch. Since this is a large group, we didn't have a whole lot for each student to do. It was interesting to watch as some students jumped right in, while others held back - mostly along gender lines. Two girls went to work in the kitchen, while another girl acted as traffic director, steering the servers to the tables. While Gordon had told us that the day's attendance would be "low - about 80" because it was only the second one of the season, there were well over 100. The room was mostly quiet, however, only occasional chatter breaking through the sounds of plasticware scraping paper plates.

When the lunch was done, we cleaned up the tables, put away the chairs, and walked back to school. On our way out, one of the diners, an elderly woman with an arthritic back that has bent her upper body almost in half so that she looks like a walking "L" was trying to get her shopping cart down the flight of stairs. Three students quickly came to her aid, picking up the loaded cart and then waited while the woman slowly came down. She thanked them and moved off. The exchange took place quickly, but it really resonated with the kids: several of them were talking about this woman as we walked back.