For our last day of service we worked in another soup kitchen, this one was at Trinity Lutheran Church. This soup kitchen was very different from the one we worked in the day before, not just how the show was run but also the mind-set of those who ran it, their attitudes towards the guests and their overall approach to feeding the hungry. Guests were shuffled in, yelled at, fed and shoved out as quickly as possible.
Now, I don’t know if this approach of in and out as fast as possible is wrong, I guess it was just hard to see it after experiencing such a nurturing environment the day before. One of the things I loved about HASK was that they weren’t just serving a meal; they were giving the guests the opportunity to feel “normal”. HASK gave the guests the opportunity to choose where and who they wanted to sit with, the opportunity to have a conversation and develop relationships. They are just like us; they are people with social and emotional needs that need to be satisfied. They are people that don’t deserve to be treated like second class citizens just because they are homeless. Being rude or speaking to them like they are less intelligent is not the way to go about meeting those needs.
Like I said, I don’t know if TLC’s approach is wrong, I just know it’s one that I don’t agree with.
I think a soup kitchen like HASK can do so much more for the homeless population than a soup kitchen like TLC.
