Ashalah Taylor

HSS 100
Professor Mackie
May 9th 2019

Service Learning Project

Milwaukee County remains the poorest city in the state of Wisconsin. Milwaukee County

also suffers from having the highest crime rate in Wisconsin in this is an effect due to the poverty

rate. Due to these facts Human Social Service is a great need within the city rather it be child

care, care for the elderly, helping former prisoners, providing food for the homeless, shelter and

etc. The lack of job experience, family structure, high incarceration rates, segregation throughout

the city, inadequate schools, and single parent homes play a huge part in poverty. Although

Social workers and agencies cannot cure the disease of poverty, they help greatly with trying to

minimize the effects that poverty has on society.

As a project in Human Social Services 100, each student was asked to volunteer ten hours

of their time, during the semester, to an agency in Milwaukee. I chose St. Vincent DePaul--who

greatly devotes their time to the community in many ways with many different agencies. In

specific, I volunteered at the St. Vincent Depaul food pantry located on the East side of

Milwaukee (one of the most impoverished areas of Milwaukee county). This agency’s Mission

statement is “The society of St. Vincent DePaul is an international Catholic organizations of lay

persons which seeks, in a spirit of justice and charity, and by person to person involvement of its

members, to eliminate poverty and hunger. Vincention helping can include any person to person

assistance that promotes human dignity and integrity. The Society is concerned not only with

relieving need, but also with addressing the situations that cause it.”
 St. Vincent DePaul is a non-profit organization and the governance of St. Vincent is the

Board of Directors. Although most agencies are helped by the government, non profits, such as

this one, gets its help through donations and contributions from society. Because of its great

mission and help throughout Milwaukee, churches (all denominations) help with donations as

well as food delivery and people throughout the community who enjoy helping and giving to

others.

The primary function of this food pantry is to help and provide for those in need and

people who are in dire need to feed their families. Food service is the only services offered

through this pantry. The daily population included the poor, the hungry and the homeless

(poverty-bound families and individuals). On average DePaul serves around thirty to forty

families during dinner which is from 5 pm to 8 pm. There are no payments options or payment

requirements however you have to be either homeless or in poverty to be served at dinner. Most

of the individuals who work with the food pantry are volunteers except for the managers and

security. Supervisors in the food pantry stated that they had worked within the Society of St.

Vincent DePaul for quite a long time (15 years); she also stated that she started as a regular

volunteer and overtime worked her way up. Volunteering is a passion for her.

Upon arriving at the agency for the first time, I was extremely impressed with the upkeep

of the small space. Although the pantry is inside the office, the supervisor had very strict

instruction on where certain items go, when they should be used, and how many is used at a

certain time with time and category logs. I was also impressed with the way that everyone kept

up with time--starting on time and ending on time. Everyday preparation for Dinner started at

3:30pm and dinner started promptly at 5 pm. Napkins and silverware had to be folded everyday

even if there were some left over from the night before. Tables and chairs had to be specifically
placed on tape markings on the floor with center pieces and numbers. Although the smell during

dinner was not too pleasant, the volunteers and supervisors tried their best to keep the kitchen

and dining room together.

While helping and volunteering at the agency, I worked with everything but in the

kitchen. I arrived between 3:30pm and 4pm. For an hour and a half, I helped fold silverware into

napkins, place tables and chairs on floor markings, and during dinner time I helped serve. During

down time when everyone was eating and there were not many guests coming in, I would take

my time to help pick up any loose trash on the floor and even talk to some of the guest.This is the

part I enjoyed the most. Some would ask questions, and I would sit down to talk--other times, I

would sit at a table and ask the guest questions like “how was your day?” and “how is the food?”

and out of that always came great conversation. After having interesting conversations with the

guest, I always found myself wondering what happened to cause these people to be in the

conditions they are in. The phrase “bad things happen to good people” wondered my mind often

because they all seemed like great individuals, so why were they in these predicaments. Some

even talked about their dreams, how they were great in construction or great cooks, and I

wondered, “why couldn’t you pursue that dream or career? What stopped you?”, but out of fear

of being ignorant to their life situations, I did not want to open up those conversations. I learned

that everyone needs somewhere and someone to just go and be themselves, and at this dinner,

that’s where it seemed to be for most of these people. I also learned that life is what you make it,

so you have to make the best out of it. A lot of things happen in life that are unexpected. A lot of

pain in life can also be self inflicted, but you also have to make the necessary steps to make it

better. I learned to appreciate those who are willing to help in society such as donors, volunteers,

and taxpayers because if it was not for them, these individuals would not be able to enjoy a nice
meal at the end of the night. Although this is out of the pantry’s control, one thing that could be

improved is the capacity and the amount of food being served. At a certain point during dinner,

the door is closed because the basement has hit its capacity of people. Therefore most families or

individuals are turned away, leaving them hungry for the night. This bothered me as well as it

did the supervisor and other volunteers. Seeing that some people could not eat because of the

lack of resources hurts me to the core.

While there on my first night, on break from serving food, a woman (Lisa) stopped me

while she was eating and asked me, “Hey Beautiful, why are you here? I’ve never seen you

before!” This let me know that she was a regular. I told her I was doing volunteer hours for

school. She asked me what school I attended, and I replied with telling her I was a senior at

Wisconsin Lutheran College. With the biggest smile on her face she said, “Oh! You’re a college

student!” I told her, “Yes. yes I am.” She replied, “Well, you know around here everybody can’t

go to college.” That instantly made me sad because in reality, that is the truth growing up in

inner city Milwaukee and I replied, “Well I’m from around here , so it is possible.” She looked at

me and said, “You’re from Milwaukee?!” After that the conversation became very personal.

“Yes, and college was and is not easy for me at all. I’ve struggled, being from Milwaukee, not

having the funds to put myself through college, having to take care of family, not really having

the support or push to make it through, but I had to push myself.”

“I was in college back in 1996.”

“That’s when I was born!”

“Yes, my love, I am pretty old” we both laughed.

“Let me give you a little bit of wisdom. I dropped out of school because I had to take care of my

family. I got married very early on and my husband did not want me in school anymore so I left

to follow behind a man and look where that got me. YOU have to push yourself even if no one

else does because if not you’ll end up right where I am. You are extremely beautiful, smart,

respectful, and everyone appreciates a young woman who fought her way through adversity and

statistics to make it where she is--so even if you don’t feel like you have the push behind you to

make it, you’ll appreciate yourself more when you make it across the stage because then you can

say, ‘I did it when no one else thought I could’”.

I hugged her so tightly with tears in my eyes and she wiped my tears and told me “pretty girls

only cry in private”. That experience will stick with me forever. A couple of months later during

Easter I lost my brother and I felt like giving up. I was so tired of constantly pushing myself and

take lost. I instantly thought about that conversation and told myself, “You have to push yourself

even when no one else does.”

After doing the hours of volunteering, seeing the disabilities (physically and mentally),

seeing the lack of resources, sometimes lack of volunteers reminded me of the class session

when we discussed the 9 basic helping skills and characteristics of effective helpers. After

talking to Lisa, I realized that I had displayed some of those characteristics that we spoke about
in class--some including, listening, self awareness, acceptance, genuine, empathy etc. By being

self-aware, I realized that I had issues within myself that helped me empathize with her and her

story. When she realized how open I was, she was willing to express her feelings, opinions and

was willing to give guidance where she saw fit. Listening to her helped me out more than I

thought I could. Being a service worker is not only serving food, volunteering and helping those

in need. Its being able to understand, listen, help and empathizing with the clients causing a

connection which is the best help you can give. That is what I learned out of this experience.

Being able to release yourself and placing yourself in the shoes of those who need your help is

what makes you the effective helper that you need to be. That is why as service workers we have

to look at Jesus’ example because he was the ultimate service worker. There were a lot of

situations and people that Jesus encountered and although he was the son of God, the almighty,

he still placed himself in the position to help others, and that’s what makes an effective human

service worker so important.