Group Discussion (Post-Service)
The Sincoff advocacy went to InnVision Shelter Network in San Mateo. We did various activities, including making sandwiches and brownies for the clients, as well as tidying outdoor and common areas. Our favorite parts were organizing the kids’ toys and playing with some of the kids, because it made us feel like we really had a personal impact. Our biggest takeaway was learning how life is like outside of the “Menlo bubble”, and examining the differences in our lives versus theirs. One woman was living in the shelter, with five children, and as a single mother, and her story of survival was a fascinating departure from what happens in our own local cultures. We did feel that we had an impact on the shelter, because the people living in the shelter appreciate even the smallest services we can give them, knowing what it’s like to have nothing. What surprised us was the fact that we saw mostly women with children, and not many men or fathers. We were also surprised at how clean and safe the shelter felt, and how it really did feel like a community. We don’t feel that we found anything new about ourselves, because it is hard to discover new things about yourself in four hours while simply doing monotonous labor, and not interacting with the people themselves. Because we didn’t have much interaction with the people themselves, we didn’t find ourselves emotionally connecting to the shelter or having prominent emotional reactions. Some possible actions Menlo kids could do to help alleviate homelessness and hunger would be:
- Donating uneaten bagged lunches from field trips and during Knight School.
- A Knight School course based on hands-on community service.
- Regular, non-mandatory school-organized service days on Saturday mornings.
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