In the beginning of Kozol's article he discusses a church where children often can be found due to it being a low income society. He discusses a story that he shared about a little boy named Cliffie about him going to get slices of pizza for his parents. He comes across a homeless man whom he decides to share his pizza with. Cliffie goes onto saying "God told us- Share" (8). This quote made me think of the time I had gone on a mission trip with my youth group to Pennsylvania to work with a group called Blessings of Hope. It is a food distribution warehouse that me and about ten other kids from my church went to work at for a week. This was our way of filling the gift of sharing with those who cannot afford things. The experience had me meet some amazing people. I also, learned that there are a lot more people struggling in this world than I thought. I met and stayed with a family for a week who were Mennonites. They were the ones who ran Blessings of Hope. I also, got to interact with the people who were coming in to receive boxes of food and also, some of the harder to find toiletry items that we had brought down with us. We had collected over the whole year toiletry items as those are things that are needed by the families but don't always get donated like food does. It made me personally appreciate the little things in my life that we don't always think about. Another quote that I also, found I could make a connection to this trip was on page 22 when David is talking about his mother protecting him even though she cannot protect him. It made me think of the parents I would watch come in on the Thursday that we distributed food and them telling me that they have kids but didn't want to bring them because they were embarrassed that they even needed the help. Personally, this broke my heart to see so many people in need but felt so rewarding when we would tell them that we had toiletry items for them and they would start crying and thanking us for taking the time out of our lives to collect these items for them. I overall, related to Kozol's experience of learning about all the hardships though a real life experience.
http://www.lightofhopeministries.com/blessings-of-hope/ ---Link to Blessings of Hope Website
In the beginning of Kozol's article he discusses a church where children often can be found due to it being a low income society. He discusses a story that he shared about a little boy named Cliffie about him going to get slices of pizza for his parents. He comes across a homeless man whom he decides to share his pizza with. Cliffie goes onto saying "God told us- Share" (8). This quote made me think of the time I had gone on a mission trip with my youth group to Pennsylvania to work with a group called Blessings of Hope. It is a food distribution warehouse that me and about ten other kids from my church went to work at for a week. This was our way of filling the gift of sharing with those who cannot afford things. The experience had me meet some amazing people. I also, learned that there are a lot more people struggling in this world than I thought. I met and stayed with a family for a week who were Mennonites. They were the ones who ran Blessings of Hope. I also, got to interact with the people who were coming in to receive boxes of food and also, some of the harder to find toiletry items that we had brought down with us. We had collected over the whole year toiletry items as those are things that are needed by the families but don't always get donated like food does. It made me personally appreciate the little things in my life that we don't always think about. Another quote that I also, found I could make a connection to this trip was on page 22 when David is talking about his mother protecting him even though she cannot protect him. It made me think of the parents I would watch come in on the Thursday that we distributed food and them telling me that they have kids but didn't want to bring them because they were embarrassed that they even needed the help. Personally, this broke my heart to see so many people in need but felt so rewarding when we would tell them that we had toiletry items for them and they would start crying and thanking us for taking the time out of our lives to collect these items for them. I overall, related to Kozol's experience of learning about all the hardships though a real life experience.
http://www.lightofhopeministries.com/blessings-of-hope/ ---Link to Blessings of Hope Website
I think that was really awesome of you to go and help out like that! Sounds like a great experience.
ReplyDeleteThat trip sounds so rewarding and amazing but definitely bittersweet. Seeing that so many people don't have access to things that we take for granted every single day is sad but definitely necessary, because only then can we actually do something about it.
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