In true annoying blog form, I'm going to give some background into choosing the Sunday Friendship Feast as my first volunteer activity for Forty by 40. 2020 uprooted everything for pretty much everyone. For me, it made me realize that I needed to serve out a greater purpose with my life. When I saw the injustices happening with the BIPOC community, individuals experiencing homelessness, people protesting with weapons outside the mayor's house...these things changed me. I lost faith in my faith community when they weren't leading the charge on a lot of these injustices. And when I found out that the church I loved had a vastly different view on LGBTQIA+ rights and their roles within our faith communities, I knew my family and I needed to step away. All of this prompted my need to step up and to do something. I Googled "social justice jobs and degrees" and social work came up and it turned out that we had a pretty great social work program here in Boise.
My first internship was with the McKinney Vento Program at Nampa School District where I worked with families experiencing homelessness and let me tell you, this is WAY more common than you think. This validated my belief that unhoused individuals are "othered" by our society for the most part and people don't take the time to hear their stories and see their humanity--which I believe goes directly against the teaching of Jesus. I'm sure most of you know that I grew up in the evangelical Christian world and even got my undergrad degree (including a minor in Biblical Studies) at Trinity Bible College. While I turned into Matthew 25 and take very seriously "what you do to the least of these you do to Me", it turned me into a progressive Christian. I started loving and paying attention to people whose lived experiences were different than mine and I started to speak out about their injustices. Somehow, this made a lot of people who have always been close to me think I was turning away from my faith when in fact, it is that "What Would Jesus Do?" mentality from the 90s that has led and continues to drive this path that I am on to social justice.
The Cathedral of the Rockies is a United Methodist church that is down the road from my house. In 2020, I started paying attention to them because they had banners with sayings that were justice-focused such as "Do justice. Love mercy. Walk humbly." which is Micah 6:8 and the inspiration for my lady justice tattoo. These exact words will be added to the tattoo at some point. The church also had banners that showed their support for the LGBTQIA+ community (in fact, they fly a pride flag 24/7), showed support for women's right to choose after the overturning of Roe, and their support for Interfaith Sanctuary.
For those of you that don't know, Interfaith Sanctuary has been a hot button issue in the Boise area. It is a homeless shelter that outgrew their downtown location and sold their building a bit early without having another place secured. When they found a new location in the old Salvation Army building on State Street, the surrounding neighborhoods hated the idea and have done everything to stop Interfaith Sanctuary from opening there. No matter where you stand on the issue, here are some facts: saying that a shelter in your neighborhood plummets home values is effectively "othering" individuals who need these services and saying "I'm moving" shows your privilege. Thinking that only individuals that utilize homeless shelters are creepy, single men that only drink and do drugs is effectively "othering" these individuals and that is statistically not true of the people who use these shelters (I see you, commenters on NextDoor). I saw this firsthand when working with families experiencing homelessness. If the statements I just made make you feel a certain way, then I urge you to reach out to me and volunteer with me at this shelter in the future. You CANNOT know what people's experiences are without spending time with them. Okay, back to Cathedral of the Rockies...
I recently decided to start going back to church and my choice was with the Cathedral. While the music isn't what I'm used to coming from the evangelical world, I love their message. I love that they have gay people on the worship team and teaching Sunday school. I love that after one of the many mass shootings that have happened recently, they talked about it in church and the pastor wore orange (a symbol for better gun safety laws). I went to a Coffee with the Pastor and asked him a lot of hard questions that most Christians shy away from. I love that he said I am just as likely to find members of the church protesting at the Capital as I am to see them in church on Sundays. He welcomed my questions and encourages Christians to have the hard conversations because that's how we learn from one another and deepen our love for people. I wanted to know what they were doing to help the issue of homelessness in our city and this is how I found out about Sunday Friendship Feast.
Every Sunday and every third Thursday, they make a hot meal for anyone to enjoy and during the week, they serve sack lunches to anyone who comes by wanting one. On November 27th, I signed up to be a part of their prep team. I got the chance to speak with Pete Schroeder who is the director of these food programs. He explained how he got involved with this work and how he is the church's representative on several housing committees. He made mention of the fact that he is shocked that he is the only church representative that goes to these meetings because the church should be more invested in issues like affordable housing and helping those experiencing homelessness (I agree). He explained that it is not just people experiencing homelessness that come by for meals from the church. During the weekdays, they get a number of Boise High School students who come get sack lunches and that a lot of them take the time to chat with some unhoused individuals. I'm telling you, there are a lot of people afraid of what the world is going to be like with our youth, and I've got to admit that I'm encourage by so many things I see them doing. I believe they are instilled with more compassion and empathy than my generation was. When I asked Pete what the struggles with running a food program like this was, he said that it is ran by volunteers and that most of the people who take the time to volunteer are elderly, retired folks, he has seen a dramatic decrease in volunteers since the Covid pandemic because of this population being higher risk. While he had hoped that the numbers would be back to normal by now, that just isn't the case. Pete showed me the gymnasium where they used to serve the meals indoors and allow the people a break from the outdoor elements, but because of the dwindling volunteer numbers and the fact that they have to hire a security guard for indoor events of that size that costs over $150, it just can't happen right now.
So how did my actual volunteering go? Great! I met a few retired couples (one of which was a social worker who wants to meet with me about policy work). They showed me the ropes and kept me busy. Since it was the Sunday after Thanksgiving, they had been given ham and a lot of other Thanksgiving-ish sides. My job was dishing out various sides into the to-go containers. We made 80 meals that day. When people started showing up to receive food, Pete took me outside to see the impact this work makes. There even happened to be a gentleman playing his guitar who was currently staying in a halfway house while he got his life back on track (his words). There was a 90 year old man who comes down just to chat with people. It was really amazing to see.
I guess my parting thoughts from this first volunteer activity is that, if you are able, volunteer somewhere. Find the things you are super passionate about and do some research into opportunities to volunteer in that field. If you don't know where to start, please reach out to me and I would be more than happy to connect you to some resources. According to Pete, volunteers are needed now more than ever.
***Disclaimer. All information and opinions above are from me and I am NOT representing any of the organizations mentioned. While I am doing my best not to turn these blog posts into research papers, I can send more information backing up some of these claims if you are interested.
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