During my fall semester, I’ve been volunteering at a nearby soup kitchen in our downtown New Brunswick area (which is awful to walk through as a young lady, by the way). Just like any new experience, I was nervous at first but quickly got over that factor. In the past couple of months, I’ve volunteered at the soup kitchen seven times. To my surprise, most of the “customers” at the soup kitchen have cell phones. Like many other volunteers, I thought it was a weird thing - do they choose to pay their cell phone bills monthly over paying for their meals? Does someone else pay it for them? Furthermore, most of them look perfectly well off. They’re well-groomed, seem to bathe regularly, and I’ve even seen one man walk in with a shiny red motorcycle helmet that lacked a single scratch.

…Really?

One particular woman frustrates me the most. She’s a regular and is very social; however, she presses all the wrong buttons. Her doctor apparently said that she can’t consume food that is too rich (i.e. the ravioli we prepared today). OK. That’s fine. What about the bagged lunch we have? (It includes a sandwich, a snack, and some type of beverage.) Nope. She doesn’t want it.

“You know what?” she says. “I’ll just have a little of the ravioli today but that’s it. No more after it. My doctor says I’ll end up in the emergency room if I have too much of that stuff.”

Again… Really?

A chef on our end suggests some leftover turkey from Thanksgiving. She goes to the walk-in fridge and takes out a bowl. At first, the customer says no but then changes her mind. The chef heats some up in the microwave and puts the rest back into the refrigerator. Then the woman asks for seconds. Fine. That’s heated up to and served to her. How nice.

At the same organization’s Clothesline Project is where donated clothes are sorted through and organized so that anyone who needs them can walk in and take a few garments with them. A lot of the conversations I’ve heard while I was there was in Spanish so I didn’t pick much up. However, I understood this much: 3 pieces of clothing per person. A couple of ladies took advantage of the fact that they were not watched by the supervisor. They stuffed clothing into bags they were carrying and only left a few garments in their hands as they were leaving to be seen.
Should I have said something there? I’m not sure.

During that same day, a woman approached another volunteer and myself with a slip of paper. I’m guessing that it was documentation to prove that they needed the clothing they came for. She explained that it was her first time there and didn’t know what to do. Her four-year-old daughter was with her…
They looked for some clothes and even though the mother’s voice sounded rather light, you could tell that she was trying to uphold that facade for the sake of her daughter. Luckily, the supervisor found a brand new winter jacket for the daughter that fit her perfectly. Sure, she didn’t have the luxury of going to the mall with her mother to buy the jacket that some kids claim they have to have but it was cute, pink with various colored hearts decorating the interior. It even had matching snow pants.
While I was sorting through the boxes of clothes, I found a brand new boxed holiday-themed pajama set. If I remember correctly, it had reindeer on it. It was size 5T which meant that it should have fit her daughter or at least be close to fitting her daughter. I approached her, box in hand, and asked if it would and if she would like it since I honestly didn’t know where to put it. She looked down at my hands, said yes, and thanked me graciously.

The entire volunteer experience has left me with mixed feelings. I guess I know I’m helping people but do some of these people need the help? Do they deserve the help? Am I a bad person for even saying that?
I’m grateful for all the opportunities and the luxuries I’ve been blessed to have as well as all the people in my life that I know I could turn to if I ran into unfortunate circumstances. I’m also more than willing to give back but I’d like to be sure that who I’m giving back to deserve it.