My Volunteering Experience - Homelessness and COVID-19

A few weeks ago, Happy Healthy Us organized a fundraising and donating drive to support a local Chicago initiative, Dupage Pads. Pads is an organization dedicated to housing the homeless.

In response to the pandemic, Pads has transitioned to an expanded interim housing model, housing hundreds of people in hotels across Dupage county (in Illinois). Pads has also taken on the responsibility of providing packaged meals to feed the people they house every week.

This past Friday, I was able to volunteer at Pads and see firsthand the good the organization is doing in terms of providing homes/ food for the homeless. My shift started at the organization’s client center, its main hub of operations. I was tasked with helping a Pads employee load over 100 hand packed food packages into the delivery van. I had come in earlier to pack some bags with items like microwavable meals, canned fruits and vegetables, ritz crackers, chips, and other nonperishable foods and snacks.

After packing the delivery van, we headed out to the first of three hotels Pads is currently using to support its clients, around 15 minutes away from the client center. As we pulled into the parking lot, there were already a few people lined up to receive their weekly food supplies..

I handed out water and juice to each client that stepped forward to claim their food bags, and from my position I was afforded a view of the people that had come to receive support. There were families, individuals, and peoples of all races and ethnicities. Each one was excited to see the Pads van, and some even seemed surprised at the weight of the food bags they were receiving. Even an act as simple as handing out an extra bottle of water seemed to receive warmth and gratitude.

Looking at the people coming to accept their weekly food bag made me feel a strange mixture of both happiness and sadness - a dichotomy that I now understand. It’s always hard to see others in need. I felt sadness for the people I was helping because there didn’t seem to be an end in sight for their situation, particularly under the circumstances of the current pandemic. Yet, I also felt happy that I could bring relief in some small way.

Seeing firsthand how impactful something as simple as a bag of food is extremely touching. What a lot of us take for granted can mean the world to someone else. A smile or a simple “how are you” could be the only outside contact some people would get for a while.

I could tell that some of the people taking the food were uncomfortable being there; they took the food without making eye contact, said thank you and left. It made sense to me. It’s a matter of pride that makes it so hard to accept the help of others. I’m just thankful that I was able to help in some way.