This past week I got to be a counselor for an amazing service trip through Camp Shalom. Myself and another counselor got to travel to Chicago with 8 high school students to complete many different service projects through-out the Chicagoland area (with a few breaks for fun things in the city). The goal of the trip was to provide a few service opportunities to the high school campers that required different types of work.
Monday was a full day of service work. We went to Holy Family Ministries Center and played games and did crafts with the kids in their summer school program. It was fun to work with kids from 1st grade to 8th grade at this neat school. The high school campers enjoyed using some of their leadership skills while helping to led activities as well as playing with the group of kids. They told us many funny stories and jokes as well as re-did all of our hair (the girls were all so cute - it was hard to say no to them). I enjoyed working with some kids that had a different background than myself. In many ways they were the same, but a lot of their stories were way different than my life. It was fun to teach them a few new games and help them with crafts in their big gym-like room. We also had a tour of the school.
After exploring the city and visiting Millennium Park and eating dinner, it was time to prepare for our evening project. That night we worked to serve a sack dinner alongside The Night Ministry. We made 75 meat and cheese sandwiches, orange slices, and rice crispy treats to serve next to the bus (that provides various medical tests and procedures free of charge for those in need). There are very few paid positions with The Night Ministry and is therefore mostly run by volunteers (who were all very nice and appreciative of our help). After a few traffic problems, we finally made it and set up our table. As the campers served the meals, I watched the interactions between them and the bus visitors. Some of the visitors were very grateful and expressed their thanks many times; others were very shy and barely said a word; and a handful seemed dissatisfied with our sack dinners and wanted more. The variety of their reactions was very interesting and eye opening. It taught me a lot about people as well as gave me a small glimpse of what the life of the homeless may be like. This experience was also something that I would not have the chance to do in my hometown. I think the campers also enjoyed the experience and will hopefully learn from it and share the experience with their family and friends. I would definitely enjoy helping with The Night Ministry and I would recommend volunteering with this organization to anyone slightly interested.
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