A Hard Day's Work

Today started with another early morning wakeup. The group met downstairs for our breakfast and we were on our way. Today was the first day we were heading to an actual shelter - the group was really excited and also a little nervous. We arrived at the Family Crisis Center (FCC) around 9AM. We were met by Elishia - the supervisor of the center. I think we were all surprised when we saw how young she was. As I walked in the house I thought it was just that - a house. From the outside no one would recognize that this was a shelter for women trying to escape from attackers. We sat down in the group room and proceeded to get an introduction from Elishia. We learned that the FCC is a shelter for only women and children - men are not allowed to stay at the shelter. The women can stay for 30 days at most - this was a littler surprising to some of us - our first question was what if people needed to come back? Elishia informed us that some people will come back but the goal is to advocate for the clients and get them back on their feet - whether that means finding new housing, jobs or another shelter. We asked a few more questions, getting familiar with the procedures of the house. Finally Elishia informed us of our tasks for the day. Since the FCC doesn't usually get a lot of help - they had many tasks to be done around the house. We were really excited to get our hands dirty and see some hard work come to life. 

We had four tasks to accomplish for the day. Organizing and cleaning the basement, the bathroom, the kitchen and the shed. The 11 of us broke up into teams and headed to our locations. I was in the group that headed outside to tackle the shed. 4 folks headed downstairs, one tackled the bathroom, two of the participants handled the kitchen and the remaining three assisted me outside. When we got to the shed and opened it up we were all a little amazed at what we saw. My first thought was, "wow I did not have enough coffee to handle this." The FCC had received many donations since November, Elishia informed us that that is the time the shelter receives the most donations. Unfortunately these donations were a little too much for this shed to handle. The donations came to the door - there was a small area in which we could actually see the floor. A few minutes later - after the shock wore off- we got to work. We figured it had to be organized so to start everything had to come out. We dove right in and started working. 

The entire group worked really hard til lunch time. We broke around noon to head inside and enjoy our sandwiches - at that time we all earned it. While we were eating Elishia informed us that there was a little baby boy at the shelter who didn't have any clothes - not even a clean pair of socks. So the team outside in the shed working with donations were put the task of finding something for the little boy. After lunch the groups went back to work - a few earlier tasks were done so we outside got more hands to help. We finally started to see some light at the end of the tunnel. We continued working really hard for the rest of the day. By the end of the day everyone was outside helping us in the shed. We had people working on sorting clothes for re-donation, others folding countless pairs of jeans, some lugging trash to the dumpster, everyone had a job. It was a great sight to look outside and see everyone working so hard. We finished up the work at the FCC and headed out for the day. It was a long day's work for everyone - the hardest day that I have worked in awhile that is for sure. 

When we got back to the hotel we decided to do our reflection then instead of after dinner. The reflection was really insightful. The group is starting to become more comfortable with each other and thus being able to open more about their thoughts and feelings. It is really great to have a space for people to feel safe in. The reflection concluded and we headed back to our rooms to get ready for dinner. 

Our dinner tonight was being donated to our group from the students in the Catholic Student Association (CSA) at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. We arrived that our location on campus and walked into the meeting still in progress. We got our burritos and found a seat among the group. The group was really welcoming - asking our group questions about why we are doing what we are doing in Knoxville. It was a great time for Michael and Lyndsey to share with their knowledge and experiences with the group - and they did an excellent job too. 

After the meeting was over we got a chance to mingle with the students - learning about their work in service to the community. The participants had a great time - whenever I looked around the room I saw smiling faces and heard laughter. It was nice to be able to interact with some other students who shared similar interests. We then volunteered to help them with a task they needed to get done for their church. We helped them - fold and seal over 1000 pamphlets in about 30 minutes. It was another great time - to complete a task with our bare hands and see our accomplishments. Our day started and ending with hard work. At the end of the day even though we were exhausted we knew we had done something great. Nothing a little hard day's work can't fix.