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Carlynn Gasser

Professor Zachary Brewster

Honors Sociology 2000

Service Learning Journal

Saint Anthonys, March 6, 12pm-3pm

Today, I helped collect and organize donations for the poor and the homeless. At my

church, there are several bins in the front lobby for people to donate non-perishable food items,

clothing, books, and toiletries. I was assigned to do a variety of jobs, from greeting those who

were donating, to helping bring donations in, as well as sorting donations into their correct bins

and carrying them to storage rooms and the basement.

One of the things that shocked me was that there were not a lot of people donating today.

Admittedly, we collected a fair number of items, but it was not anything that I was expecting. I

had expected that dozens of community members would be dropping off dozens of grocery bags

full of non-perishables and that we would collect several garbage bags full of clothing, but there

was not any of this. We had three women bring in a few bags of cereal boxes, canned soups, and

granola bars, two people bring in one garbage bag each of clothing, and one young catechism

student bring in a handful of books. A few others brought in a couple single items of toiletries

and food, but that was it. I can only wonder why more people didnt show up. Maybe it was

because they didnt know about the donation drive for the poor. Every part of me would like to

believe that it was a lack of organizing and planning that caused the donation drive to be less

than successful, but the other part is more cynical. I come from the Belleville area, where the

community is not overwhelmingly poor, and I think that because poverty and homelessness are

not things that people in Belleville see every day on the streets that they dont have any
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motivation to donate to a drive that is trying to support the surrounding communities like the city

of Detroit. This says something about people in general: if it does not directly affect you, then

why bother, why care?

Personally, this way of thinking disgusts me. I was raised in a family were giving was a

daily thing. My parents constantly reached out to neighbors, friends, and often times strangers to

help them survive by donating old shoes, clothes and by cooking meals. That is why it is hard for

me to sit at a donation drive for three hours and see only a small collection of itemsits foreign.

One of the donators that I spoke to, a middle-aged woman, made me consider the

importance of the smallest items. She brought in a bag of mouth wash, deodorant, and some

dental flossall items that I wasnt surprised to see. What surprised me was that she had rolls of

toilet paper as well, and that made me think. It is such a small item that everyone takes for

granted. Most people do not even consider donating toilet paper because they believe it to be an

item that everyone has access to. Someone who has always had a home has probably always had

toilet paper (except for those brief moments when you run out, and go to the store to get morea

privilege that the poor or homeless may not have). I certainly have never sat down to use the

restroom and been upset when I realized that we couldnt afford toilet paper. The truly poor

people, though, may have to make the decision between more toilet paper or groceries. And the

homeless may often go wherever they can whenever they can, using whatever is available for

wiping. Working at the church today made me more aware of the small things that I take for

granted every day, and made me appreciate the life I have because I never remember a time that I

went without something.

Another potential reason why more people did not show up could be that they follow

the functionalist perspective, where form follows function. These people believe that
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society inherently tends towards health and stability and will therefore correct the issues

plaguing it. They also believe that if an issue persists overtime that it is part of the living

system and has its place. Homelessness and poverty are clearly two things that have remained

in society, albeit oscillating up and down over the past century. I can speculate that, in contrast to

the people who think that these societal traits do not affect them, some people believe that having

a poor and homeless class of people does affect them by the fact that it allows them to do well in

their lives.

This mentality is based on the fact that there are not enough jobs in the country to support

every capable worker, and that having an unemployed/homeless class ensures that there will be

jobs available for those with more security. In addition, there is a stigma where many people

believe the poor and homeless to be lazy individuals who sealed their own fate by not working

hard enough to sustain their own lives or by abusing drugs and alcohol. People who believe the

poor to be lazy and bringers of their own bad fortune tend to think that donations and helping the

poor and homeless is a waste of time and that handouts will do nothing to alleviate their woes.

I am not someone who uses this type of reasoning. Like I mentioned before, my parents

raised me to extend a hand to those in need, and I personally believe that helping each other is

the right thing to do. I do not think that all homelessness should be or ever will be completely

eradicated, but I see no good reason why we should not give to those in need.
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Saint Anthonys, March 20, 12pm-3pm

Today, I volunteered in the first-grade catechism class. I helped the students with their

Love and Jesus Christ drawings and helped to explain to them the importance of loving thy

neighbor. Most of the students understood what love meant and they all had several examples,

including loving your family, pets, and friends, and knowing that loving someone or something

meant taking care of them/it and being nice to them/it. When the catechist asked, though, if they

loved a man sitting on the sidewalk in raggedy clothes, they all responded, nomost of them in

disgust and horror. She explained that homelessness was something that existed everywhere and

that even though we dont know that person sitting on the sidewalk wearing raggedy clothes, we

should still love him by taking care of him and being nice to him. There were several religious

reasons, including that God loves all his children, but the lesson to be learned was that we should

love him because it is the right thing to do.

When some of the kids protested that they were taught to avoid strangers, I tried to

imagine how I would have responded to this scenario. I was raised Catholic and attended the

same catechism class that I had volunteered in, and my parents taught on both sides of the

spectrum. I was raised with a password policy in place, and I was told to avoid strangers and that

if one ever approached me to ask for the password and to run away screaming if they didnt have

it. On the other hand, though, my parents raised me to be kind to those around me and to treat

everyone the way that I wanted to be treated. This was fair enough to the six-year-old me: avoid

strangers, but be nice to people I knew. I believe that I would have had trouble accepting a love

the homeless stranger on the street mentality because of how I was raised. But as I got older,

probably around the age of twelve or thirteen, I began to show a deep compassion for the

homeless and poor people that stood on the side of the road with cardboard signs, despite the fact
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that they were total strangers. My parents would keep driving without a second glance at them,

and I would be nearly sick to my stomach with sadness, wanting nothing but to help. I would

read the cardboard signs: Diabetic; need insulin; Starving; no money, no food; please help;

I have four kids to feed; please help; and these signs would make me want to help because I

believed that they needed help and partially because I loved them.

The more people that I saw with these signs, the more I thought that homelessness and

poverty were a societal issue and less a personal trouble. My parents looked at the beggars on

the side of the off-ramp and saw drug addicts and con-artists, believing their situation to be

nothing more than a personal trouble, a result of their own misfortunes. But I looked at these

people and began to see that something was really wrong with society, that something I wasnt

100% sure of, but I understood on some level that these people standing on the side of the road

were all puzzle pieces in a larger societal issue. Now as college student, I better understand the

issue that I had obsessed over seven years ago. Homelessness has personal elements to it. Yes,

some of the homeless may be living on the streets or with a friend or relative because they lost

their job, car, money due to the abuse of drugs or alcohol. However, the majority of people are

homeless because of a chain of societal failings. Most people become homeless because they

cannot afford to pay their bills, and they cannot afford to pay their bills because they lost their

job, resulting in a long streak of unemployment. The societal issue, then, is not homelessness,

but the means by which the homeless become homeless. Our economy is based almost entirely

on the principle that there must be a class of the unemployed because there are not enough jobs

to support the entire population. Because an unemployed class must exist, by simple logic, there

is going to exist a class of homeless that resulted from losing ones job and not being able to pay

ones bill.
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From the functionalist perspective, homelessness and poverty are two things that have a

place in society because of their persistence over time. While relief programs exist, it is

inevitable that these two societal components will never be completely eradicated. That is why I

think that loving thy neighbor is a good mentality to have. It is a mentality that supports helping

those in need, as well as teaches young kids that it is an important thing to do.
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Saint Anthonys, March 27, 12pm-3pm

Today, I helped to clean up the church by dusting the fake plants that are used to decorate

it and cleaning the glass doors and the windows of the quiet room. Admittedly, this was not the

most influential form of community service, but it was the job that the church needed me to do

so I did it. What I would like to focus on, though is what I observed while I was cleaning up the

church.

About half way through my cleaning, people began to enter the church. They did not

mind that I was cleaning but simply went along with their business. I could tell that they were

frequent parishioners because they were familiar with the customs of the church. As each of the

group members entered, they dipped their fingers in the baptismal fountain and performed the

sign of the cross. They then kneeled before the crucifix and headed towards the pews to take

their places. Being raised Catholic, I am accustomed to these behaviors and they seemed very

natural, and I hardly paid any attention as these people came in. The whole group consisted of

about ten people all gathered in the front 4 rows of the pews. I wasnt entirely sure, but I think

that they were a prayer group meeting to say the rosary. The leader read out the prayer as the rest

of them responded appropriately and that is when I noticed a few things.

Firstly, I would like to clarify that while I was raised Catholic and am a confirmed

member of the Saint Anthony Catholic Church, it has been a long time since I attended a full

mass, saying of the rosary, or catechism class or Bible study, and the unfamiliarity of the prayer

group made me think about culture. In class, we defined culture as the shared ways of a human

social group, including the ways of thinking, understanding, and feeling that have been

gained through common experiences. Being a member of the Catholic church is like being a

member of a subculture, where these people share values, attitudes, behaviors and lifestyles.
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Dedicated members of the Catholic church know the norms of entering and exiting the church

(dipping your fingers into holy water and doing the sign of the cross), know how to perform the

rosary, and know the correct responses to prayers (i.e. Prayer: may the Lord be with you;

Response: and also with your spirit). Another aspect of the subculture is the language.

While the language mass is conducted in is English, the Catholic religion often uses Latin words

and phrases and it is expected that you know their meaning. Additionally, there are several

symbols that are associated with this religion. When waiting in line to receive the Holy

Eucharist (the body and blood of Christ), hands waiting in front is a symbol for having

performed your first Holy Eucharist and that you are able to receive the Communion, while

hands behind the back mean that you are unable to receive the Communion. Another symbol is

the importance of colors. The church is decorated according to which religious season it is on the

religious calendar. For example, purple is the color used on Easter, and green is a color used

during non-holiday times, like in the summertime.

The first point I would like to make is that culture is a thing that comes with practice in

certain situations. Yes, it is true that culture is all around us and is like water to a fish, but on the

other hand, a subculture like the Catholic religion is something that needs to be practiced often.

For example, as I observed the prayer group while I volunteered at the church, I felt lost for some

of the prayer and some of the responses because it had been so long since I had practiced those

prayers. Also, it had been a long time since I had said the rosary and I could not really remember

the pattern to the rotation between the Our Father and the Hail Mary, nor could I

immediately recall the meaning of the stations of the cross that are displayed along the church.

Based on these observations and reflection of my religion I noticed that religion is a subculture
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that needs to be practiced in order to stay abreast with the norms, behaviors, language, and

symbols.

The second point I would like to make is that sometimes cultures can change. For

instance, a few years ago the proper response to May the Lord be with you was And also with

you; however, when there was a change in the Pope, the Catholic Church underwent a

reformation where some beliefs were modernized and prayers were altered slightly. An example

of a modernization of the Catholic church was the acceptance of the use of birth control and the

acceptance of same-sex marriage and divorce. These changes occurred because it was time that

the Catholic church recognize that some of its beliefs were outdated and needed renewal. The

fact that the church was able to change aspects of its culture only supports my earlier notion that

it is important to practice culture because it is subject to alterations. Admittedly, these

alternations on a larger spectrum would mostly go unnoticed. In fact, because culture to us is

like water to a fish, we would scarcely notice a change in our culture unless we were

removed from it, thus experiencing a culture shock.


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The Hope Clinic, April 3, 1pm-5pm

Today I volunteered a different organization, the Hope Clinic in Ypsilanti, Michigan.

They are a non-profit organization that offers free medical services as well as a food pantry that

provides three meals a day and a childrens unit that has diapers, baby food, formula, and baby

wipes for mothers and fathers with children. For my volunteer work, I organized shelves in the

food storage unit and helped to pass food out to those who came for lunch meal.

Organizing the shelves was actually more labor intensive than I had anticipated it to be.

They process was very thorough. I had to mark each item with an expiration date and then

organize the shelves based on expiration date, brand, and type of food. It was sort of an

enlightening experience because I never thought that there would have been so much thought put

into how the food is stored. It certainly made perfect sense to me, but it was never something that

I had given much thought to. The organization was very adamant that only non-expired food be

put on the shelves and packaged, which is reassuring because even though the organization may

seem desperate to have enough food to feed and help every patron, its first priority was making

sure that the food being handed out was quality. Another aspect of helping to organize the

shelves in the food storage room was that it was a pleasant surprise when we ran out of shelf

space for the food. That means that the organization is receiving enough donations to need more

space to put them. If I do say so myself, this is a good problem to have.

Something I noticed about the workers of the organization that I noticed was that

everyone took some enjoyment in their work. Everyone was happy to be stocking shelves and the

conversation was very positive. I overheard two male workers talking about how they aspire to

travel to third world countries to help end world hunger and how working for the Hope Clinic

food pantry was a step towards his goal. It was very liberating to hear this type of conversation.
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In high school, I noticed that volunteers in the National Honors Society grumbled about their

work because they were there simply because they had to be there. These people that I worked

with however, they were there by choice and because they truly wanted to see a change in a

problem that they cared about. Working in this type of environment kind of inspired me to love

what I do and do what I love, and this experience has influenced me to evaluate the

public/societal issues that mean the most to me and to work on pursuing these issues and

helping to better understand their causes and to explore opportunities for me to help solve the

problem.

The other half of the volunteering that I did today was passing out food to the patrons

who came to the Clinic. This occurred in two forms. First, passing out meals to those who came

for lunch. The lunch offered was simple: a ham, lettuce, and cheese sandwich, a bag of chips, a

fruit of their choosing, and a drink that they were free to choose. The second half was packaging

brown paper grocery bags with food items like bread, sticks of butter, cartons of eggs, and some

fruits and vegetables and handing them out to people who needed them. What really stuck out to

me was the type of people that came to pick up food. Some of them looked rough, wearing

raggedy clothes and looking tired and worn out, but most of them looked just like people who I

would expect to see at the grocery store: normal looking people. They didnt look poor, but is

there really such a thing as looking poor? As a child, I always imagined that poor people looked

small, lost, and dirty, wearing old clothes with holes in them that were either too big or too small;

but the reality is that it is difficult, almost impossible, to tell if someone is poor or wealthy

simply by looking at their appearance. And who is to say that all of these people could truly be

considered poor? Maybe it was just a tough week and they needed a little bit of help. Maybe they

could afford some groceries from Meijer or Kroger, but just not enough. I commend the people
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that reached out for help. It cannot be an easy thing to approach a stranger, like me, and

demonstrate that they are struggling on some level and that they need help. Certainly, if I were in

that type of situation, my pride would be wounded to some effect if I were to need assistance

from an organization like Hope Clinic. But I truthfully and wholeheartedly believe that these

people are strong. They are setting aside their pride to do the right thing, maybe for just

themselves, or their children, or their parents. Not only do I think they are strong, but good

people. It is a small sacrifice, I think, to give up your pride or stubbornness to care for those you

are responsible for.

At some point during the passing out of food, a cynical thought crossed my mind. What if

these people didnt need help? What if they were taking the food and didnt need it? I know that

it is not right to doubt someones motivations for taking help when it is presented for them,

especially after I just pointed out how only a strong person could wound their pride to ask for

help, but I could not help but wonder. I am not nave, and I understand that the world is just as

much made up of good people as it is bad people, therefore I do not think it is far off the beaten

path to assume that some of those people who visited the Clinic today for help were all there for

the right reasons. As each person passed, I wondered Do you really need this, or are you just

taking advantage? Then I reminded myself that this type of thinking would spoil the good

feeling that is generated from volunteering, at least in my case, and I chose to avoid this

mentality for the duration of my hours there.

As I helped to pass out meals and grocery bags to the patrons, I noticed that most of them

were females. This struck me as odd, because I know that women were not the only ones affected

by poverty and rough times. Recalling our class discussions on the institution of gender, I soon

speculated as to why I saw mostly women. First, our society emphasizes women as the care
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providers for children, and has done so since the earliest of civilizations. Many impoverished or

struggling women that have children are single mothers because of this ancient mentality, where

the fathers do not see a real need to be in the childs life. I know that this is not true for every

father out there, but certainly it is seen more often in impoverished families. The reasoning that

supports single mothers solely caring for their children stems from the socialization of the

mother and father by their parents. Perhaps the womans mother cared for her and her

siblings while her father worked all day and did little to nurture the children. Seeing this

while growing up would teach the now single mother that it was normal for her to be

raising her children by herself and that she shouldnt question whether she should be doing

it or not because it is just simply a part of the institution of gender in our society. It is

expected that she raise and provide for her children because it is her role as a woman, as dictated

by the culture of gender.

I personally do not agree with this way of thinking. I fully believe that if it takes two

people to make a baby, then it should take two people to raise a baby. This way of thinking is a

direct result of the way I was raised, a component of socialization. My parents taught me that

they were equal care providers by sharing the burden of bringing up four daughters. They always

told us that they were a team and that they couldnt raise us without each other.
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The Hope Clinic, April 18, 8:45am-10:45am

Yesterday morning at the Hope Clinic, I worked in the baby room helping to package

diapers into gallon bags and to create bags on baby food. In each gallon bag, I had to put twelve

diapers and in each grocery bag I put three cans each of a meat based, fruit based, and vegetable

based baby food. I talked to the coordinator about how many bags of diapers, bottles of formula,

and bags of baby food each person could take. She informed me that each person was allowed

one bag of diapers per visit and one grocery bag of food per visit. This made me think of how

these care providers cannot possibly rely solely on the Clinic to get supplies to take care of their

young children. As someone who has babysat kids from infancy to adolescence for the past seven

years, I am confident that twelve diapers could not possibly last for more than two or three days,

and it would be a stretch to conserve diapers until the third day. Additionally, if the baby eats

three times a day, the food could not last for more than three days at a time. Having seen the

limited supply of diapers and baby food that are available at the Clinic, I can safely assume that

the Clinic cannot provide enough support for babies without the care provider having other forms

of assistance. This fact is a little bit upsetting because I know that child care supplies are

expensive and that it must be difficult for those who are struggling to adequately take care of

their children as well as themselves. These people, though, as I have learned in class, are not

those that are truly below the poverty line. Those that truthfully need help are those who

are just slightly above the poverty threshold. This is because those above the poverty line

are not eligible for federal aid and thus struggle more than those below the poverty line

who are eligible for federal assistance.

In my opinion, this line does more harm than it does help to those who are struggling in

our society. It is inevitable that poor people will remain a class in our society because there
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are not enough jobs to support every capable worker. It is also inevitable that at some point

during a persons life that they will fall below the poverty line. But what about those families

that are struggling just above the poverty line? How is it helping them? By denying them federal

aid? By causing them to sink lower and lower in the class system, exposing them to stress and

doing without, and becoming a part of the faceless class in America? The poverty line certainly

sets a point of comparison to determine who gets federal aid, but if they are getting federal aid

are they actually worse off than those who are living slightly above the poverty line? I do not

think so.

Another connect to the course that I would briefly like to address is that the experiential

knowledge I acquired about baby supplies by babysitting is anticipatory socialization. It is not

developmental socialization because I am not a mother who is learning to be a mom as I raise my

children, but rather, I am working to anticipate what it might be like to raise my own children

someday but working with her peoples children and learning about their behaviors and needs.
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