Brittany Parker
This week four people that worked at Franciscan Outreach came to visit us and talk to us about their lives there. They told us about their living situations and how they live off their money. They don’t pay rent, but every two weeks, they get paid and receive a weekly $50 stipend and $25 a month for public transit. They’re supposed to live off only their stipend so they can connect with the guests that come to stay at the shelter.
It’s an amazing thing that these people volunteer to help other people that they don’t even know. It’s really incredible to me that they can love random people and want to genuinely help them out of the kindness in their hearts. Nowadays people are so heartless, and they don’t care about anything or anyone. That’s why things turn out so inadequate in life, because people are so darn careless.
We only care for ourselves, and we don’t care about the world and the people in it because we’re too focused on things like money, power, and all these other materialistic things that don’t mean anything. It’s such a greedy world. There’s no way people should be hitting the lottery for $36 million while there’s people starving in the streets. There’s no way that some people should own planes and yachts while other people don’t have houses. Even if you earned it, you still owe. If I was walking down the street and I had $5,000 on me, I would feel wrong giving a homeless person only a quarter.
After hearing the volunteers talk about their experience at Franciscan Outreach, it has me thinking a lot about what I want to do with my life. I’m seriously thinking about doing some volunteer work over the summer. I’m not sure what I want to do with my life because there’s so many things that I love to do. I love writing, ceramics, acting, photography, and I love helping people but I can’t seem to think of something to do with my life that involves helping people besides being a nurse or doctor. I don’t do well when I see blood and things like that so that life won’t work out for me. However, some volunteer work actually seems like a good place to start.
The full-time volunteers have to work 40 hours a week, but they have been provided their own bed to stay without any rent fee. They receive $200 per week for groceries, $50 per week as salary, and $25 per month for transit, and this money comes from charity and donations from other good people. When they work in here, they often feel challenged, frustrated, and helpless, but on the other hand, they have more friends, family, and so much other good things in their own lives. As they work in here, they are also learning through working with other people, they can know more kinds of people.
There are two themes of CST are relevant here - Preferential Option for the Poor and Marginalized and Dignity and Value of Human Life. We shouldn't prefer to be poor or treat care for the poor as optional but we must remember there has always been poor people around us no matter where. Jesus calls us to consider the poor in every decision we make, personally, communally, and socially. Although we have not have to become poor ourselves, we must consider the consistent ethic of life that calls us to respect life in all forms at all stages from the beginning to the end. Jesus calls us to view and treat all human life as inherently and valuable in all forms at all stages of life.
First I thought it isn’t fun to have a full-time service commitment, but after talking to them, I have changed my mind, it is fun and also cool when I can make friends with different types of people and become more social, like these volunteers do. I have done some service, but it was only for one day. I know it will feel really good when I help other people and see their smile on their face. Although their outside might not look good, the thing is they often very happy and can be a motivation for me to participate more. We can help these people by donating to the community, ask for help on social media, or just volunteer to these places to give them a hand to help more people without wanting for return. Like Dan (a volunteer at Franciscan Outreach) said, we choose to do because there are massive problems in the society and we must reach our hand out to help.
Note: Minor grammar/style edits have been made to each post not affecting the content or perspective of these students.
