Service Learning Log 1-Megan Sullivan

Service Learning Log - 4/12/08, 12:40-2:30pm
To start our volunteering shift at Project Angel Heart, we left from Halls dormitory at about 12:20 and it took us about 25 minutes to get there. We packed into the front room of Project Angel Heart’s building while we listened to a general overview of what we would be doing and how the deliveries would be organized from Russ, the distribution coordinator. He explained the sheets that drivers would be getting and what to do if the client isn’t home to receive the food bag. He explained the individual nutritional food needs of the client and how each bag of food is put together specifically for the client.
He also said that when delivering the meals, not to ask the client how they are doing as a greeting. He explained that the clients have a debilitating illness or injury that prevents them from providing food for themselves so it’s not very appropriate to greet clients in this way. He suggested using “It’s nice to see you” instead. I was thankful that he addressed this because I had never considered that, we all use that question as a greeting, but for an ill or dying person, it would be rather insulting.
The organization of the deliveries was so well prepared and arranged. Each client has individual food needs and requires different amounts of food for the week, some don’t have much of an appetite, requiring very little food, and others need food for themselves as well as their family members. Food allergies and preferences must also be taken into account for each client. Not only does Project Angel Heart put together the bags of food with each client’s name and individual meals, they also group the clients together in routes that are in similar areas. All we had to do when delivering was find the route with houses closest to us, get the sheet with the client’s names and addresses and pick up the bags for that route.
Finding the houses proved to be a little more difficult than we expected, none of us know Denver that well, but we were able to find the houses. We only had three clients to deliver to, so it didn’t take very long, we were finished and back to campus at about 2:00pm.
I was a little disappointed by the fact that we only had three deliveries to do; I only interacted with one client. The first delivery we did wasn’t home, so we left the food with a note on her doorstep. Marisa and Jamie did the second delivery and Keren and I did the last. Interestingly though, the last client lived in an apartment building extremely close to campus, within walking distance from my dorm. The apartment building was old, built maybe 50 years ago. The hallways were extremely small and very smoky. I had never visited an apartment building like that before. We knocked and the client opened the door fairly promptly. He had grey hair but didn’t look extremely old, but very weak. We handed him the bag of food carefully, he almost didn’t look as if he could carry it, but he managed and we said our hellos and goodbyes and that was the extent of our interaction.
I assumed I would be delivering to people around Denver, in areas that I am not familiar with. However, delivering to this man made the issue of delivering meals to strangers much more personal. I realized that if there was one man in need of food that close to me, how many other apartment buildings and houses are full of people in need as well? I wasn’t expecting, when I went that morning, to deliver meals to a “neighbor”. Every time I pass that apartment building now, I think of the quiet little man that lives there, that depends on Project Angel Heart.