A Day of Volunteering at Caritas Refugee Center
Author: Reese Moore
Hello everyone!
On Wednesday July 25th, my fellow students and I had the pleasure of volunteering at Caritas Refugee Center. The center offers a plethora of services, such as, proving food and social support to refugees and immigrants in need. Every day, the volunteers and workers distribute food and clothes, while offering education, counseling, and support services for the individuals who come to the center! You can read about the other amazing services provided and donate to the cause on the Caritas website.
During my time there, I was able to run the play room and work in the cafeteria cleaning trays after the refugees had finished their meals. The play room was quite exciting! It was a small room filled with all sorts of toys and crafting supplies the children could entertain themselves with. We painted, colored, played catch, and raced hot wheels all over the room!
The walls were covered with drawings and artwork from the many children who have passed through the center. Many of the drawings were ocean themed, and often depicted a family traveling through the water on a boat. I found this both interesting and a bit sad. The children I babysit at home in St. Louis usually never draw an ocean scene (unless it includes singing mermaids and fish). However, this is the reality for most of the children who come to visit the refugee center. They have migrated away from their home and are telling their stories and conveying their feelings through the images they paint and draw.
Alternatively, volunteering the kitchen was a completely different environment. It was extremely fast paced and a plethora of individuals passed through hungry and waiting for food and supplies. My job was cleaning off the trays brought to me by the refugees once they had finished their meals and then running the fresh trays back to the front so they could be used again. The people eating in the cafeteria were extremely diverse. I watched families sit and play with one another as they ate and grown men laugh hardily at each other's jokes. It was a truly heart warming experience to volunteer at the center.
Hello everyone!
On Wednesday July 25th, my fellow students and I had the pleasure of volunteering at Caritas Refugee Center. The center offers a plethora of services, such as, proving food and social support to refugees and immigrants in need. Every day, the volunteers and workers distribute food and clothes, while offering education, counseling, and support services for the individuals who come to the center! You can read about the other amazing services provided and donate to the cause on the Caritas website.
During my time there, I was able to run the play room and work in the cafeteria cleaning trays after the refugees had finished their meals. The play room was quite exciting! It was a small room filled with all sorts of toys and crafting supplies the children could entertain themselves with. We painted, colored, played catch, and raced hot wheels all over the room!
The walls were covered with drawings and artwork from the many children who have passed through the center. Many of the drawings were ocean themed, and often depicted a family traveling through the water on a boat. I found this both interesting and a bit sad. The children I babysit at home in St. Louis usually never draw an ocean scene (unless it includes singing mermaids and fish). However, this is the reality for most of the children who come to visit the refugee center. They have migrated away from their home and are telling their stories and conveying their feelings through the images they paint and draw.
Hi Reese,
ReplyDeleteThanks for the insight! While I volunteered at Caritas that day as well, I spent significantly less time in the childrens' playroom than you did. I hadn't noticed the paintings of the boats or the sea. Alternatively, something that caught the eye of Emilia and I was the world map they had created and put up on the wall. Specifically, the countries of Syria and Greece were about twice the size of the entirety of North America. Coming from young children who'd originated and migrated to these places though, I don't blame them. I just thought it was interesting to see the world through their eyes.
I also was surprised at the diversity of ethnicity that came through the soup kitchen. I saw not only Middle Easterners (what I believed to be Syrians and Afghanis,) but Africans, Asians, and White people. I truly saw people from all kinds of backgrounds, and it was quite humbling to know that anyone could be put in their position, but I am fortunate enough to be on the other side, and it felt good to help out.
Reese, as I had the same experience as you both working in the playroom and in the kitchen, it was interesting to see the differences in the two areas of the Caritas center. I agree that the most profound thing to see in the playroom was the drawings that the children created. While I spend a lot of time working with children in St. Louis, they typically draw things like their families in a house or their favorite Disney characters. It was extremely moving to me to see young children's artwork of their families crossing seas in small boats. While this scene has always felt very distant and something I'd only ever see on the news back home in the US, seeing children's drawings of it made me realize what a truly lived experience it is for so many people. Another thing that really brought things into perspective for me was seeing how overjoyed and excited the kids, and parents, were to have access to a room full of toys and art supplies. While this may seem like a simple and common thing for most children, many of the children that come through the Caritas center do not have regular access to the amount of toys and crafts they have to offer. It was truly an eye-opening experience to spend time with these kids, even just for a short amount of time.
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