Throwback Post: Saturday Service

*Throwback Post #6*

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Saturday's are normally reserved for many various activities:

- College football (which kicked off a few weeks ago with a near upset by the UNI Panthers over the Wisconsin Badgers)

- Cinema visits

- Couch bumming and pigging out on chips, cookies, and other junk food (while watching football of course)

During the next year, I'll be able to add Saturday Service Projects to that list as well! This past Saturday, we had our first service project and it was quite a success!

Our first services project involved working with the Homeless Coalition, which actually is an organization that works closely with The Lord's Place. The 40 of us were split among two different sites. The site that I was placed at actually ended up being The Lewis Center, the center where I worked at during my first week with The Lord's Place.

The Lewis Center is named after for Senator Phillip D. Lewis, who was a starch advocate for ending the cycle of homelessness. During his time in Congress, he pushed for legislation that would aide those that are homeless in helping them find jobs, homes, and receive general help in their daily lives. He recently passed way, and as  a way to remember him, his family came to the center as well and helped us out, which was a really cool thing to experience.

Of the 25 of us that went to The Lewis Center (the other 15 were at a different distribution center sorting and folding clothing donations), 15 of us went out into the community around The Lewis Center and did a general trash/garbage clean-up, while the other 10 stayed at the center to sort through clothing and other donations that had been dropped off at the center.

I was on the trash clean-up crew. We were broken up into 5 teams of 3 people and assigned to various blocks/areas of the neighborhood surrounding the center. I was paired up with Cathy and Teradee and between the three of us, we were able to canvas about 5-6 blocks and collected about 4 full garbage bags worth of trash over the course of about an hour and a half or so. It was nice to be outside, helping out the community, and spending time with each other.

Once we finished our trash pick-up, we headed back to the Lewis Center and jumped in with the clothing sorting/folding. We were able to interact with the Lewis family a bit and it was pretty cool to explain to them what we are doing here and to hear how excited they were that we were here and serving.

These service projects will be occurring pretty much every weekend. We are required to do at least 2 every month. I'm super stoked for the project next Saturday - Special Olympics Bowling. I'm not the greatest bowler in the world, but I'm excited to work this event. I have a few friends who are active with Special Olympics and they always have great stories to tell about the events that they help out with. It's going to be an amazing experience!