When I was a teenager, the youth group at my church traveled for one week, each summer, on a “mission trip.”
We would go to an impoverished area of the country and build homes, fix fences, serve meals, and do whatever needed to be done.
It was always an amazing experience, and along the way, we worked with youth from other churches around the country, some of whom we are all still in contact with, today.
Monkey Girl is now in that same youth group, and this summer, they were heading to Niagara Falls for their mission trip.
Coincidentally, Niagara Falls is the first mission trip that I went on as a teenager.
About a month or so ago, the youth leader sent out an email stating that one of their chaperones had backed out at the last minute and they needed someone to fill in.
Now, while I’m not the strongest in the religion department, my main goal in life is to help others as much as I possibly can, so after making sure Monkey Girl would be on board and that Real Man had no issues with me leaving him and the boys for a week, I signed up.
I’m sure when I say “Niagara Falls” the description “an impoverished part of the country” isn’t exactly what comes to mind.
However, the Niagara Falls of our imaginations and the Niagara Falls of daily life are two very different places.
The trip was coordinated through YouthWorks, which is an organization that finds areas that are in need, and then spends the summer coordinating church youth groups to come together and work within those communities.
The leaders of the Niagara Falls YouthWorks group, Miss K, Blake, Mia, Rachel, and Ryan were wonderful at placing each group (there were about four other church groups from around the country there at the same time we were) with members of the community who needed their help, and being a liaison between the community and the youth.
The entire trip was wonderful.
I was able to build relationships with some pretty amazing youth, and we had a fun time together as we took care of the community.
My group was tasked with three different assignments.
The first was at the Niagara Falls Meals on Wheels.
The Niagara Falls branch of Meals on Wheels is run out of a church, and while Lori, the coordinator is paid for her time, the cooks, the packers, the deliverers…are all volunteers.
While we didn’t cook the food, we made sandwiches, buttered bread, packaged food, and did a few deliveries.
It is amazing how efficient these women are, and how the whole operation runs like clockwork.
There were approximately 65 people that were receiving meals the week that we were there, and the coordinator has to be on top of who is in the hospital, who is out of town, who has what dietary needs, etc.
If one of our youth had a question about what a marking on a paper was, the volunteers were able to pull the information right out of their heads.
“Oh, Betty? She’s low sodium, no milk, only juice, only wheat bread.”
It costs a lot of money to run Meals on Wheels, and it is all done through donations.
It is more than just the purchasing of food, as well.
They need to pay bills, they need to purchase supplies, etc.
Our youth got to interact with some of the recipients, as they made deliveries, and all reported not realizing how hard it must be to rely on others for your meals, and how often, that would be the only human interaction these people would get all day.
It was a very humbling experience.
Our second assignment was serving food at The Magdalene Project.
Our youth worked as servers, waiters, and clean-up crew as they served a hot lunch to approximately 100 walk-ins.
While half of the youth prepared the meals, the other half and I drove to a hospital to take delivery of 15 mattresses they were donating to the project.
We drove them back to the church, and then carried them up a few flights of stairs to be stored in the attic until they were able to be put to use.
We also unloaded a garage full of bags of clothing donations and organized them for the church.
We had a great time serving the food, alongside the other volunteers, pretending we worked in a restaurant, making up names for the meals.
For example, if someone wanted an adult plate with everything, we called it a “biggie.”
If they didn’t want the string beans, we’d call for a “biggie – no strings attached.”
No thank you on the rice?
“Biggie with a Chinese detour.”
Five kiddie plates?
A “playground.”
We served with smiles, but again, the conversations in the cars focused on how does this happen in a town where so many people around the world come to visit?
One of the statistics we learned was that 20-30% of the houses in Niagara Falls are abandoned.
What was once a booming tourist town became a town where industry vacated in the 90’s, but the people stayed.
As kids grew up, they left town to search for something better, leaving their parents behind.
People who were middle aged when the businesses left lost their jobs, and then their homes, accounting for the abandoned houses.
The elderly whose children had moved far away were the Meals on Wheels recipients.
And the people who had lost their homes?
Where did they go?
Niagara Falls has terrifying winters, and the number of homeless people in a town that had more feet of snowfall than ever before, last year, is horrifying to consider.
Which brings us to our third assignment.
One of the abandoned buildings in town was a YMCA.
The YMCA association sold the building to the Niagara Gospel Rescue Mission for $1, and they are working hard to turn it into a homeless shelter.
Again, working through donations and volunteer labor.
Our task was to clean out some of the rooms in order to begin to prepare them to become living spaces.
Our kids scrubbed, swept, mopped, scraped, and worked up a sweat as they began the work of converting the abandoned space into one that would be welcoming and safe for those in need.
The youth really seemed to get it…that this would become someone’s home…a small room to us, but the entire world for someone who was, that night, sleeping on the street, and they put their all into the process.
Throughout the entire trip, the thing that stuck with me the most was the fact that all of the volunteers were people who, themselves, did not have much, and that it was the people with little who were giving all they had to the people with nothing.
We weren’t working with wealthy people.
These were people who were working other jobs, scraping together to make their own ends meet, but they saw that there were others out there who were struggling more than they were, and they were determined to make life better for these people.
I want to carry that with me and remember, always, that what I have is nothing if I can’t share it with those in need.
So, I share all of this with you, today, for a few reasons.
One, of course, is to share my experience.
The other, though, is to ask for your help.
If you have the desire and the means, pick one of these places, and help.
Send money.
Send supplies.
Send whatever you can.
Because people are in need, and who are we if we don’t reach out to those who need us?
Niagara Falls Meals on Wheels at St. Paul’s Lutheran Church
Main Contact: Lori Gantt
1920 18th Street Niagara Falls, NY 14303
Inspiring!
Comment by patti — August 12, 2015 @ 8:24 am |
Thank you, Patti! 🙂
Comment by Amy — August 12, 2015 @ 10:35 am |