Gay Charlotte - Natalie - Day 5

Today was one of our fullest days! We headed over to Crisis Assistance Ministries, an organization that helps people with lower income statuses pay their rent, utilities, etc. and also provides a free food closet that individuals can visit once a month. When we first arrived we got a tour of the warehouse from John, the volunteer coordinator at the ministry. It was different from any place that I’ve volunteered before, because I knew what we were getting into and all the good that we were about to do before we actually started working.

In Charlotte, three in seven homeless people are children and it has one of the highest rates of unemployment in the country. We spent the day taking inventory of donations, hanging up and color-coding t-shirts and shorting shoes. This kept us busy for the majority of the day and we had a ton of fun!

Leah and Ashley sorting donated clothing.

Blake, Mitch and Drew are trying to ramp up their dapper-factor.

When we got back to St. Johns in the evening, Rachel graced us with her cooking skills. Though she didn’t quite know how to cook we all managed to pull together and make a delicious meal. It didn’t even matter that Drew dumped the entire pot of noodles in the sink while trying to drain them. Didn’t even matter.

We stopped for a photo op with Paul Revere.

After partaking in our supper, we decided to explore the church. There’s a large window in the gym where we sleep and the members of our group have a running theory that there is someone sitting in there in the dark, watching us sleep and performing a social experiment. We decided to try and find the room, but ended up discovering the nice Romanian lady who cleans the church. She regaled us with stories of when people had broken into the church and scared her in the dark hallways as she cleaned.

Suffice to say, we were a bit unsettled after that, so we decided to watch a little bit of Harry Potter 7.2 to cleanse our brains after the scary tales of knives and killers.

Day five was, in a word, eventful. For once we didn’t run out of bananas!

-Natalie Parker