Service Project

Catholic Charities fulfills the Church’s role in the mission of charity to anyone in need by providing compassionate, competent and professional services that strengthen and support individuals, families and communities based on the value and dignity of human life.  For service project, I volunteered to help out with the community dinners coordinated by the Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Chicago.  These dinners were for families who lack food security and do not know whether or not they will be able to eat dinner on a daily basis.  I volunteered at this community once in September of 2014 and once in February of 2015.  The dinner took place at St. Christopher's in Midlothian, Illinois.  Here, I helped prepare and serve the meals for those who attended the dinner.  As I served some of these people, I was able to make general conversation and joke around a little.  The atmosphere was considerably positive.  One interaction I had with one of them that I still remember is when dinner was over and I was starting to clean up.  There were two gentlemen talking about baseball and I had to ask them if they were done with something so I could put it away.  I made a little side comment about one of the teams and the man made a joke back and then asked my opinion on the team's recent game.  Between the three of us the conversation went on for no more than thirty seconds but I felt i brought some positive energy to the conversation because within that thirty seconds, I was able to make them laugh and joke around about how poorly one of the teams performed.  After this experience, I learned more about food insecurity.  Coming into this community dinner, I thought there would be some homeless people there.  Honestly, I do not think there were any there.  The crowd consisted of people who are unable to feed themselves or their families due to whatever situation they were in.  I could not believe how many local people were food insecure.  I would have liked to known why they did not have access to food through government help so that they would not have to attend this dinner.  I would do this service learning again because I really enjoyed serving people in need and providing them with a positive atmosphere so that they felt comfortable and safe.