Cancan Li
Professor Bald
English 121
MA 2 What We Can Do More Than Service Cooperating with different people including college student volunteers and local neighbors living in the Capital Hill community, Seattle, I volunteered at Central Lutheran Church Community Lunch Program, which provides free meals three times a weak to nearby low-income and homeless people. Every early Tuesday morning, I worked to prepare food and set dining room before our guests’ coming. Many homeless people slept overnight near the church’s entrance and gathered in front of the transparent door at ten o’clock. Being locked out before the lunch was served, they spent more than two hours lying on the door and kept staring at people inside who were busy in the kitchen. Compared to people outside, each volunteer in that kitchen was under massive pressure because of not only the heavy work but also their stinging gaze on back. That is the first time I realized the homeless people’s participation in service work was necessary and inevitable for a successful and effective community service program.
Most social programs owned by business or government hire trained faculties, admit part-time volunteers and very limited service beneficiaries, homeless people in this case, to keep service running. Service receivers are traditionally defined by incapacity of serving like patients on operating tables who do not probably take scalpels to open their own chests. This misconception wastes huge labor power from the homelessness. Despite the mid-aged groups, an old lady I came across when I first arrived at the church showed me her availability for at least simple work. That morning, I was locked out and lost the way to the back door. The old lady in rags who spent the night at the open space near the church door initially greeted me and asked what I needed for help. After