Civic Identity
Alexa, Hannah, Jessica, & Sevanah
Habitat for Humanity ReStore
On day four of our trip, we spent five hours volunteering with the Habitat for Humanity ReStore located in Wheat Ridge, Colorado. While we were working with this community partner, out tasks included unloading trucks, setting up furniture and tools, cleaning, and organizing. We were all able to work together to complete whatever tasks we were given in a timely and efficient matter. By combining all of our individual skill sets, we were able to work with the ReStore’s employees and community in order to serve with them.
All of the Habitat for Humanity ReStores located in and around Denver, Colorado play a large and important role in the city’s community. A large percentage of Denver’s population consists of homeless people and poverty-stricken families. Stores like the ReStore are able to work with the communities to accept all types of donations and then resell them for a very low price that most people are able to afford. Ideas and work like this is what helps the homeless and poverty-stricken people get back on their feet and rebuild their lives as best as they can.
Denver Rescue Mission
At the Denver Rescue Mission we helped organize different items and packages for people eligible to come in and take what they need. Our last task was to unbox coffee k-cups, stamp them, and box them again. This was our most challenging task, but with everyone working together we got it done pretty quickly. We had an efficient assembly line going where each person had one task to do, then passes the box down to the next person, and so on. This displayed a great amount of teamwork, as we worked together to accomplish one goal.
The Denver Rescue mission gets their items through donations from other agencies or people. People who are eligible to come here are those who are suffering from poverty and cannot afford the basic necessities.There are all different types of items here such as food, furniture, and clothes. They also have a program which helps people learn about mechanics and when they graduate they allow them to keep the car they fixed.
Denver Food Bank of the Rockies
The Food Bank of the Rockies gets its food from donations which go to people except seniors. Seniors get new food that is not donated. The Food Bank of the Rockies gives children food on Fridays to take home for the weekend. However, the Food Bank of the Rockies does not serve all food insecure people. They have specific programs that serve food such as the Partner Agencies, Mobile Pantry, Kids Café, Totes of Hope, CSFP Food Boxes for Seniors, and TEFAP Helps Families. Relating this back to our topic, not all immigrants benefit from the food bank because they need documentations and not everyone is eligible for it.
We volunteered with the Denver Food Bank of the Rockies from 8:45 am - 12 pm on Monday 3/12/2018. At the Food Bank of the Rockies, we worked as distributors. We pulled and built orders from warehouse inventory for different agencies. There were specific rules for the orders, and they should not exceed 5 ft high.
The civic identity skills that we used on this trip included: Organization (organize foods and orders), Hard-work (as soon as one order was done, move on to the next), Flexibility (serving food was canceled, and our team was flexible to do distribution instead).
Habitat for Humanity
Habitat for Humanity was founded in 1976 by Miller and Linda Fuller. They created this organization in hopes to provide adequate housing for those who cannot obtain it. The houses are built for them with no cost. The new homeowners need to provide service hours in building home to show that they are dedicated. They are also provided with no interest loans that way they can sufficiently pay off their homes. Volunteers are constantly helping out in assisting the building of homes. This company also has fundraising and accepts money to go towards future homes. In today’s day in age Habitat for Humanity works with 70 countries and has helped more than 9.8 million people. This company overall is thriving and is doing an amazing job helping by others around them.
On our 5th day of the trip we were able to partake in helping in the destruction for a reconstruction home. We torn down the old parts of the home to make room for the new parts. There were some workers tearing down sides of the house and others were tearing down the rock decorations on the front of the building. We arrived at 9 A.M. and were there until 4 P.M. It was a nice day filled with service and communication. We got to meet some of the other volunteers that were assisting us that day. This was a nice experience because many of them have been doing this type of service work for years. To be able to take part in something that makes a large impact in someone’s life, is something that filled us all with happiness.
This foundation overall is doing an amazing job at helping those less fortunate. The only issue with this service work is that our topic was “Immigration”. All of us were hoping that we would get the chance to work with people struggling with this issue. Instead we did nothing with that topic and worked more with the topic “Homelessness”. Habitat for Humanity does not allow non-citizen people to partake in this opportunity. It is misleading to keep this topic name and let others be fooled by what their service trip will be about. I know that the group as a whole was upset at learning that we would not work with anything covering out topic. In the end we were still grateful we go to do any type of service work whatsoever. Being able to help others still satisfied our hearts and we were still grateful for the opportunity.
