Carecent was a God-nudge. After about two months in York, I had started to realize I wasn't going to get much support from anyone about what I was to do on a day-to-day basis. Fantastic, if you're fine with a year of binge-watching The Great British Bake-Off and long ambling walks around the city. Those things appeal to me, but not for forty hours a week. I wanted to do a year abroad to help serve people and make the world a better place, not to watch TV. (Maybe to watch a little more TV than I had been watching previously, though.)
So I was feeling frustrated and annoyed that my questions and interest in supporting the church community were being met with lots of "nos" and "laters". There seemed to be no plan in place for this random American Time for God volunteer and the more I tried to help out, the more annoyed church members seemed to get at me.
Not much has changed, frankly, some ten months later, but I've learned a lot along the way, the main things being to know whom to ask when I want a yes, and when to simply go ahead and do things without permission. (Oh and how not to CARE.)
Anyway, I don't like to sit around too much, so I took matters into my own hands. I was messing around online looking at different organizations in York to volunteer at and looked up Carecent, which I'd heard a few things about. I checked the clock - it was closing in just half an hour! I raced over to St. Saviourgate and in my haste to introduce myself to someone in charge and inquire about opportunities to help out, I accidentally interrupted a conversation between Nicky and the Lord Mayor. (No social skills. Just none.)
Thank God Nicky didn't think I was super annoying (or maybe she did, and she's pretended really well ever since then because she's very kind to me). It was providence, she explained, because one of their Monday team had just decided to leave for health reasons. I was requested to come the following week at 7.45 am to start learning the ropes. (Funny story - I've mentioned how small York is - the man who left for health reasons happens to be the husband of Issy, who ran the Days for Girls workshop at St. Columba's, and it was during this time that I first met Issy and heard about DfG.)
Part of the reason I was excited about Carecent was that I had recently started to notice the immense issue of homelessness and rough sleeping in York. One man, Anthony, whom I befriended, had made his home not far from my house. It broke my heart to pass by him each night, the evenings getting progressively darker and colder. I wanted to do something sustainable to help people like Anthony and the other street-sleepers I was meeting on my daily walks.
So it was the following Monday that I was formally introduced to the five women who have made such a big impact on my year. Angela, Uschi, Gill, Katherine, and Doreen are my fellow Mondayers. I can't say enough great things about them - generous, kind, thoughtful, and interesting women. They've all had full lives and jobs and still make time to serve breakfast. Getting to know Nicky, the project manager who fortunately doesn't think I'm crazy with no social skills, has also been wonderful.
St. Columba's has been a challenging church for me. Perhaps other volunteers would settle in well, but I never felt like things entirely meshed for me there. I did my job, I made some friends, but when it came to feeling like I was truly serving the community alongside the fellowship, it didn't feel like a natural connection.
But I feel this at Carecent. Carecent has been my comfort place, my home-base, and the place where I feel that I am truly serving and growing as part of a community.
Every week, the volunteers show how dedicated they are to helping the clients who walk through our doors. I learned from how the women had ongoing relationships with our guests and asked after their jobs, health, relationships, and well-being. I modeled my own behavior on theirs. I saw how they treated each person with dignity and kindness, even when that person might be difficult or ornery back at them.
Carecent has been my first direct experience working with the homeless population. While I gained some knowledge of this at Paul's Place, Carecent has truly taught me much more about this. Some of my favorite relationships are the jokey ones. One man always asks (in an obnoxiously American accent) how "Baltimore" (meaning me) is doing. Another man, who has severe mental health issues, still remembers that I have a boyfriend and occasionally asks me how he's doing.
In return, I try to remember details about their lives and I always try to spend part of each morning, when we're not busy at the counter, just chatting and catching up with people. When I'm behind the counter, I'm helping make breakfasts or clean. My fave thing to make is a Full English breakfast - which is really not, because it would traditionally have eggs and bacon and sausage and stuff, and ours has spam and corned beef and hot dogs.
I tend to see lots of our clients out and about, too, and it deepens the meaning of our work at Carecent. One of our guests has a permanently broken ankle. He had a wheelchair for a while but he seems not to want to more help, and he just uses crutches now. He can be sometimes rude to some of our staff (including me), but watching him walk along on his jagged, broken foot, it's not hard to see why. I'm in a bad mood when I'm hungry, much less when my ankle has been broken for literally months without proper care and rest. I ran into him one day on a walk, over by Museum Gardens, and helped him carry his heavy backpack to a bench where we sat and chatted for a while. It was humanizing for both of us.
A few other guests have been involved at Crafts with a Cause, and I've invited others to pop into St. Columba's if they like. Because I interact with our guests and my fellow volunteers outside Carecent sometimes, it feels like an undercurrent of my year, a comforting community. As I was walking to meet my roommate at Pride, I ran into yet another guest and we talked for an hour as we meandered towards the festival.
I had seen her just two days prior when I'd been at Carecent on a Thursday to help set up our new space, and it meant that she began to trust me and we opened up to each other. Presence is important - Nicky has really shown me this, as she is so present and supportive in all of our guests' and volunteers' lives. I see a number of our guests at the library regularly (that's where I'm writing this right now!) and I always make a point to say hi.
Working with the homeless population is also hard. Sometimes it's in the obvious ways. Some of our guests shoot up in the bathroom. Sometimes there are fights. I got screamed at by one of our guests for refusing to give him more toiletries than were his share during the Winter Support Bags program that I ran through St. Columba's. The entire room turned to watch the spectacle, so you can imagine I really enjoyed that.
I also have some fabulously funny stories from working at Carecent. My jaw dropped two weeks ago when I witnessed Man Number 1 accidentally nudge Man Number 2 without noticing he had done it. Man Number 2 was holding a cereal bowl, and a small bit of his milk slopped over the side and onto the floor. Man Number 2 yelled incoherently in fury at this perceived slight and threw the entire cereal bowl into the back of Man Number 1's head. As Man Number 1 turned around in surprise, Man Number 2 began yelling and eventually grabbed his arm and tried to start a fight. After the volunteers had calmed things down, Man Number 2 went outside (the police were called) and Man Number 1 continued dreamily on his way, not seeming particularly upset that he had milk all over his back and cereal dripping from his hair.
I've grown a lot from the way I used to feel personally disappointed by the behavior of guests I've developed relationships with. For instance, one man who used to attend Crafts with a Cause became enraged that another member had shared something about her personal crafting activities - she wanted the group to join in. A harmless presentation turned into his excuse for no longer coming to the group, even though he'd been a regular for months.
This kind of experience has taught me so much. It's taught me NOT to get personally disappointed by peoples' behavior. The less personally disappointed I get, and the more I take things lightly, the better it is. It doesn't mean I'm not happy to hear successes. A couple who come sometimes have told me all about their struggles with drugs and how they're working hard to be clean now and getting jobs - I am genuinely thrilled for them.
Even though I don't want to take things personally, I still care a lot. It's just the difference between serving/helping for my ego - because it makes me feel good about MYSELF - and serving/helping because it's the right thing to do. Part of it "being the right thing to do" is my faith and also my sense of social/personal justice. Everyone deserves care. This is why Carecent means so much to me. When I'm having a bad day, I can look at my volunteers and see their example. They show love to people who otherwise feel invisible and uncared for.
They show that same love to me. When I was facing my first Christmas alone, my Carecent family got me a Christmas Survival Bag. It was genuinely one of the best gifts I've ever gotten. They're always available when I'm having a rough time and after I showed up and burst into tears about how chronically ill I'd been all year, they took me to coffee after volunteering. Angela and her husband took me on a fantastic daytrip to Kiplin Hall (home of the founder of the state of Maryland!).
Carecent has truly been a host community for me, and it has taught me so much. Recently, during a Tuesday coffee morning, the worship leader asked us to think of someone who had deeply influenced me. This list is honestly endless for me - how blessed I am that this is true - but the first people who popped into my head was my Carecent family. Even though it's taken me all year to write about it, I think that's partially because it's a piece of my year that is so deeply special to me and I wasn't ready to process it yet. I will miss Carecent - the people, the tasks - the most out of all my various activities here. It was just as much a home for me as it is for the people we're meant to be serving. How lucky I am.
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