I finished my 2nd day with the United Way today. The past two days have been completely eye-opening and overwhelming. There are so many organizations and needs of this community that fly under the radar - at least in my reality. I feel somewhat ashamed that I have not heard of, or supported these wonderful organizations. For instance, Mary Riggs Neighborhood Center on the west side of Indy provides a multitude of amazing services to community residents, from mentoring and tutoring to job assistance, computer classes, and financial assistance. I had no idea this existed. We also took a tour of Second Helpings - so cool. They take in donations of food from area grocery stores and businesses that is about to go past it's sell date, or close to expiration. Then food is prepared daily for those in need. Not only that, but people who need job training can apply to be in a culinary class. The chefs provide training and many of the graduates are now big-time chefs (like Tony Dungy's personal chef!). They provided us a wonderful lunch yesterday - yum!
I still have 4 days of training, but my mind is already running through all the opportunities I want to get involved in. This community will not get any better if we don't all play our parts. After talking about the dismal graduation rates of IPS, I feel that there's a place for me in the solution. I can already tell that the next 12 weeks are going to open doors that have been in front of me all along, I just wasn't ready to see them.
Until next time...
SO, glad to read about this journey, thanks for sharing! They are blessed to have you, and you will be blessed to experience all of this!
ReplyDeleteCan't wait to hear more!