A Reflection On Service

By Annanrose O’Brien Class of 2014

I met Patti just recently this summer in the breakfast line at the House of Charity during Reality Camp, a pre-orientation program run by the Center for Community Action and Service-Learning (CCASL) for a group of Gonzaga’s incoming freshmen. She appeared to be in her late fifties, and asked me politely what “all these kids were doing here.” As I explained that the students were here to get to know clients and hear their stories, she smiled, and invited me back to sit with her and her friends at their table.  Over our donuts and coffee Patti began to share her own story with me. I soon discovered that Patti had raised her family in the area where my family lives now, and that her four children had all attended my youngest sister’s high school. I learned that she worked as the manager of a local fast food restaurant for over twenty years until she was laid off and had nowhere else to go, and that she loved to go take the bread she received from the House of Charity and share it with the ducks at Riverfront Park. She had only been struggling with homelessness for two months and did not want her children to know until she had the chance to get back on her feet.

At the House of Charity and many of the other organizations with whom I have worked through CCASL’s programs, people have loved me and accepted me without any previous judgments or opinions, while I have slowly learned the power of simply “being” without any expectation of “doing” anything. I did not “do” anything to help Patti by sitting at her table and engaging in conversation with her. Rather, by walking alongside in her journey, even for only a day, I was able to build a relationship that drew attention to her dignity as a human being with feelings and opinions just like me.  Sitting with Patti and her friends, I felt comfortable and at home in a group of strangers who were quickly becoming friends. No one cared how much makeup I was wearing, whether or not my hair was clean, or whether my tops matched my bottoms, because none of that mattered to them.  Patti and her friends welcomed my mess into their messes without any apologies or excuses. This is the way they live, who they are, and I could either choose to remain distant or to share myself with them in the same way they shared themselves with me.

Patti’s story and those of many others have opened my eyes again and again to what it means to experience injustice and marginalization by society, and my growing understanding of the reasons for the differences between my life and theirs feeds the fire within me to continue working toward change. Although my immediate reaction to these stories is always a desire to “fix” all the problems to make the teller’s life better, I have come to realize that I have been blessed with abilities to give more than simply food or money; nor should I see simply giving material goods as a means to achieving social justice in the world around me. Attending Gonzaga University and working with CCASL has taught me that being a woman for others is not as great as being a woman for and with others. For before I can go about changing the world, I must deeply know the world I am trying to change—a knowledge that can only be achieved by simply giving my presence. And it is through this presence that we as a human community can remove the social, political, or economic barriers separating us and work for change together.