A weekend with ‘Have-nots’ teaches life’s lessons

“You cannot always build the future for our youth, but we can build our youth for the future.”
—President Franklin Roosevelt, in 1940

By Tom Thinnes

KVCC students have been sampling the lives of urban “haves and have-nots” in a long-running series of service-learning excursions designed to nurture a give-back-to-the-community outlook.

Working in conjunction with United Campus Ministries at Western Michigan University, the “Urban Plunge” experiences have taken students to Chicago, Washington, Philadelphia and New Mexico. Some are tailored for those interested in various careers – the human services, teaching, health care, and even business.

Chaperoning these trips have been instructors Frances Kubicek (business), Helen Palleschi and Gloria Barton-Beery (nursing), Sadie Miles and Denise Miller (English), Deborah Bryant (geology), Richard Phillips (sociology), Fred Toxopeus (mathematics), and Natalie Patchell (transitional studies).

The students, as many as 16 on each “plunge,” span the disciplines and majors as well, says Palleschi, who has been involved in the program for two years and taken four groups. The destinations vary as well – nursing students concentrate on exposures to health-care situations, business majors see the extremes with visits to a major Chicago financial institution and a center that serves the homeless, and English students take part in a writing project at a residence for senior citizens.

Palleschi has taken her groups to a Boys and Girls Club and to the Lathrop Housing Project whose neighborhood is undergoing a substantial rebirth as prime real-estate investment. The contrast sticks out like the proverbial sore thumb – rehabilitated older homes being sold for big prices while Lathrop, which was built after World War II for veterans and their families, now houses folks for whom every buck counts.

“We stay at a nearby church,” Palleschi said. “It is an area that has had gang problems, drug problems, rampant poverty, and second-class educational opportunities. Over a three-day weekend, we’ll go to a 100-person homeless shelter for men, a center that can serve between 40 and 50 women, and a warming shelter where people can get off the street and get something to eat.”

The “urban plungers” perform an assortment of chores – preparing meals from the vegetables they find in a refrigerator and the canned goods that are available, arranging sleeping mats for those who will be spending the night at the shelter, or whatever else needs to be done.

“These are meek and minimal conditions,” Palleschi said. “What we find in this part of Chicago is not in the same league as the Kalamazoo Gospel Mission. That’s like the Radisson in comparison.” All those who make the journey are expected to write about their reflections. Some of those are reprinted below.

Palleschi’s nursing students have presented health-education programs, taught the basics of nutrition and the food chain, and explained what personal hygiene is all about. “Goodie” bags are frequently handed out as part of the programs. “But just as important,” she said, “is that the students interact with people at the shelters, learn about their health needs, and gain a sense of how they survive. It’s interesting to discover how these shelter residents spend their free time and what they do on weekends.”

The less-than-subtle message that is delivered to the youngsters they come in contact with is similar to “there but for the grace of God go I.” If those children don’t take some steps to improve their lots, they are destined for those shelters as adults.

“It is often very eye-opening to learn who ends up in a homeless shelter,” Palleschi said. “What you find are the working poor who can’t afford housing or food. The cost of living in a big city is very high.” Kubicek reflected on her most recent venture. “These were business students who are usually in a mindset about making a buck,” Kubicek said. “The experience was to plant the seed that it is possible to do well in your career while doing good in your community.”

Sleeping on the floor of a church, touring the headquarters of Bank of America, and cooking at a homeless shelter, the students traveled the gamut from luxurious wealth to public housing to people who can’t even afford that. “These are all eye-opening experiences,” Kubicek said. “Seeing a person whose total belongings are in a plastic bag registered on these students. In their case, it put a face on homelessness.”

The next “plunge” is scheduled for April. The college furnishes two vans for transportation while each student kicks in $30 to pay for food and housing, which equates to a donation to the church. CS

The value of taking that ‘Urban Plunge’

Here are the reflections of some students who devoted one of their weekends to experiencing another lifestyle that is part of the American scene and who added to their real-world education:

• “I am so happy that my (initial) ideas about this weekend were totally dead wrong. I loved every push I received and every challenge I encountered.”
• “The women’s shelter taught me that I need to find joy always in my life, and that I have many things to be thankful for. If they (44 women) could smile while making a bed on the floor, I definitely can find things to smile about in my day-to-day life.”
• “I used to take everything for granted. My mom was on welfare and she had to raise two children, but we were never homeless. What I saw in Chicago was inspirational for me.”
• “My refrigerator full of food, my closet full of clothes, my matching sheets and blankets, my privacy, my computer, my telephone, my education, my job. How did I get so fortunate?”
• “This trip has changed my life and my viewpoint forever. What I saw I never knew existed.”
• “I saw beauty and hope and light amidst the darkness.
• It was amazing to see resilient kids with raw talent at the Boys and Girls Club. I wonder if they will have the opportunity to pursue their dreams against the odds.”
• “What I am supposed to do now I don’t know, but I do know that I am a different person. Suddenly all of my problems don’t seem to be as big.”
• “We had five hours of free time in Chicago, and that sounded like fun, especially the shopping. But all I kept thinking about were the homeless and what I had seen in the shelters.”
• “Think about living this way. You have a job, but you can’t afford a home. You wake up in the morning alone because your wife is in a shelter for women. Any fears I had about this trip turned to sympathy.”
• “Because of this experience, I will now look for more opportunities for service in my own community.” CS