Day 5 By Hannah and Ashley

Big Orange Country!


This is Hannah Loftis, one of the many many engineering majors on this delightful trip. Today was our last and final day of our alternative spring break :(  . Today we worked with the Louisville Rescue Mission once again! This time we went to their "base of operations". This is where they coordinate volunteers and where they also have lunch twice a week on Wednesday's Friday's. They also give those in need a mailing address, a safe place for the luggage, and a place to bathe and wash their clothes. They also have a supply closet which contains things such as basic toiletries and school supplies, all the way to literature and basic food necessities . Individuals drop off their donations  at this location ,which are then distributed throughout the other LRM locations. The volunteer coordinator assigned all of us different tasks around this facility to complete this morning. I was tasked with organizing the donations into their respective locations in the supply closet. This included placing travel sized toiletries in their perspective boxes, moving clothes out of the room to go to the Thrift Shop ,where we worked at on Monday, and organizing a whole wall of toilet paper. After this was completed I then partnered with Ashley to help move a closet full of books to the van which were then to be transported to an alternative location. This took multiple trips and a lot of effort, but after it was all said and done the closet was cleared out for a future alternative use. After we finished the days activities we all went to the Muhammad Ali museum which addresses several of the social issues we discussed in depth this week. I am thankful for my experience, the knowledge I gained, and the friendships that formed this week, which will all last a lifetime. Go vols!

Hey everyone! My name is Ashley Hodge and I am one of the few business majors on the ASB trip. As Hannah pointed out, this is our final day in Louisville, KY. We spent this day working with LRM organizing boxes that were filled to the brim with things that people need. These were necessities that were donated by the local community and included food, shampoo, conditioner, toothpaste, toothbrushes, etc. After organizing a thrift shop earlier in the week for the same organization, it blew my mind the amount of clothing and necessities that this community has gathered in donations. Another task that was assigned to our group was the process of checking bags in and out for individuals who were participating in the organizations program. This includes over 300 men and women who were either housed at one of the LRM locations or come in off the streets every night and are registered in their system. The Louisville Rescue Mission provides these people with a place to keep their personal belongings while they take showers and check their mail (the organization also acts as a permanent address for those who have nowhere else to receive mail). This was a particularly moving experience since most of the time I take for granted the simple things that I have in life like mail service and access to personal hygiene.
This entire trip has given me a new and more informed perspective of the privilege that I have and how I can use it to help those who don't receive those same privileges. I am extremely grateful for my experiences during this week and I hope to bring everything that I have learned back to Knoxville in order to impact my own community.

Day 4

Hey everyone! This is Brooklyn here.

Today we, the 502, served with Salvation Army at their largest site in Louisville, KY. This organization makes a significant difference within the Louisville community by providing meals and shelters to those in need, in addition to their better known fundraiser where they ring bells outside most stores.

We spent the day cleaning out transitional housing apartments and organizing clothes.

One of the things that stuck with me the most throughout the day was hearing about the strong demand for their services by the community. During the winter season, the line for food will wrap all the way around the building. This made me feel guilty for how much privilege that I have and how little that I have done with that privilege to help those less fortunate than me. I realized that I have been by living my life in my own little bubble and not thinking about the daily realities of those in the communities surrounding me. After learning about the strong need for volunteers during the holiday season, I definitely want to volunteer here next holiday season!

Hello, this is Theresa.

I spent most of the day organizing the clothes that the Salvation Army distributes to the needy within the Louisville community. During the day, we sorted and repacked around thirty large boxes of clothing. Throughout our trip, we have distinguished between direct service (involving contact with the people we’re serving) and indirect service (behind the scenes work).  Our work at the Salvation Army was primarily indirect service, which many organizations have highlighted is just as important as direct service. However, several of the people in our group discussed the fact that direct service in some ways feels more rewarding even though both types of service are equally beneficial to the organization being served. Today’s service relates to our trip theme of Wealth Distribution Awareness because the Salvation Army relies primarily on volunteers in order to keep their shelter running (only 28 staff are employed full-time to run five facilities throughout Louisville), and they in turn serve meals to 300-500 hungry people within the community and offer shelter to several hundred other people each day.

Day 3 Perspective by Mary Logan and Erik

Hi all, Mary Logan here again! Today we had a triple threat from Jeff Street Baptist, to Choices, and ending our day with St. Joseph Children’s Home. We worked with Jeff Street Baptist and Choices on Monday as well, but since we were divided into small groups we switched it up today.

My small group was able to serve breakfast to the homeless community of Louisville at Jeff Street Baptist, and the other small group was able to paint an apartment for Choices. Having the opportunity to help serve breakfast this morning as well as working on the new house showed how strong our teamwork is within our group and proves that the strong connection we have formed with each other over the past few days can really pay off in working towards a common goal.

This afternoon, we went to St. Joseph Children’s Home where we were thoroughly educated on children that are in poverty in the Louisville area. Some of our group helped paint remodeled offices in the building while others worked in different classrooms with the child development branch of the organization. I volunteered in a classroom of two-year-olds today, and it was such a fun experience. Not only did I have an amazing time playing with kids and being able to assist the teachers, but I also learned about how important it is for these children to get one-on-one attention. Kids in this program have dealt with some of the most traumatic experiences you can imagine so it is important that they are validated in their thoughts and ideas. I am very grateful to have had the opportunity to play a part in the process of giving attention to those who need it (and having fun while doing it!).

Once we arrived back at our housing site today, we all gathered together in the common room. As per usual, we began having great conversation right off the bat. This soon led to us starting our reflection early, and I can truly say that this was one of the most genuine conversations I have ever been a part of. Seeing group members allowing themselves to be vulnerable about the topics that we have worked with this week and sharing how thankful we were to have worked with such authentic organizations connects you on a new level that I can not put into words. It blows my mind how much we learn every day, and I can not wait to see the impact this group will make in the Knoxville community as we return with new found compassion and determination.

Erik here now with a few updates from the other groups. As addressed by Mary Logan, we reached a turning point within the group, the strength of connections and self reflection within the group has reached a new high. The quality and depth of conversation has continued to establish new bonds as we strive to maintain a positive morale in the face of others’ misfortunes.

Today we took another trip to Jeff Street church and the two groups from Monday switched roles. One group worked with Larry and we fixed breakfast burritos which proved to be very fun and rewarding. Tasks were broken up into whisking eggs, dicing vegetables, cooking, and serving.

After this, we moved to a Choices housing site to help cleaning the location. Half were tasked with loading up trash to take it to the dumpster and moving usable items to another housing site. Out back was overrun by branches and twigs that could serve as a potential hazard while not being very pleasing to look at. Once this was finished we had reached the final hour of our service at Jeff Street. We ate lunch on our way to the St. Joseph's Children’s Home.

The afternoon began with a very interesting and educational history of the facility and then a tour of the grounds. We learned about the children that live there and the situations they come from, putting a new perspective on the face of poverty, homelessness, and abuse. I was in the other group from Mary Logan, so we painting painted an office for a new administrator. It was fairly standard work, yet they continually reiterated to us that what we were doing was greatly needed to improve the organization as a whole.

We rounded out the evening with a nice breakfast dinner of eggs, sausage, pancakes, and hashbrowns. Afterward, we made our way back to the living area where interesting conversation resulted. A natural conversation began which turned into a de facto reflection with each saying our high and lows for the day and leading to a more structured reflection with questions from the leaders. Even after the conclusion of the official reflection, we continued smaller group discussions.

Day 2 Perspective by Mary Logan, Cory, and Victoria

Never in a million years would we have thought that watching a documentary at 9:00a.m could be so interesting. Today, our group had the pleasure of volunteering with the Family and Children’s Place in Louisville, Kentucky. Our day started with rapidly fixing our PB&J sandwiches while downing a cup of joe. Once we arrived to the site, we met with Jennifer who is a program director for the organization and Micah who is the Director of Development. They started by informing us on Family and Children’s Place and what they do for the Louisville  community. The mission of this organization is to help homeless families find and maintain stable housing, provide case management for the families, and provide basic living necessities. During the discussion, we discovered many startling statistics about poverty in the United States. One in five people in the United States under the age of 18 are abused. Additionally, being homeless doubles your chances of being physically abused and triple your chances of being sexually abused. Homeless people are also shown to age much more rapidly due to the stressors of their lives. Knowing these facts made us that much more motivated to help in their cause.

Hi all, this is Mary Logan! Today, we watched a documentary called “American Idealist- Sargent Shriver”. This documentary related to our topic of wealth distribution awareness because it covered Shrivers’ mission to end poverty in our nation and depicted practical activism. It went into detail about the civil rights movement as well as the War on Poverty. It also showed what progress was made during that time in order to offer hope for our nation as we tackle these issues in our future. After watching this documentary, I felt that I had been thoroughly educated about the problems with poverty that our world faces, and what actions we can take as a society to work towards bettering these issues. Afterwards, we had a lot of thought-provoking conversations that really opened my mind to think about our trip’s theme in ways that I had never even considered before. I felt that watching this documentary helped our group dig deeper into the problems that we face as a society and gain a new respect for each other. One of the most important aspects of this ASB trip is to be able to bring back what we learn to the local Knoxville community, and I feel that what we were educated on today will strongly contribute to that. I think that our group had a lot of great bonding experiences today, and I look forward to serving and learning with this amazing group of people for the rest of the week!

Hello, beautiful people! This is the sassy, yet classy, Cory Kleppe. After watching the documentary and discussing the implications of the film, we traveled to Walmart to buy supplies for people in need with Jennifer. As a part of their mission, they provide people in need with bare necessities like clothes and blankets. We gathered supplies such as shampoo, conditioner, lotions, and toilet paper to help restock. After purchasing these items, we went to Family and Children’s Place’s storage facility to store our goods and reorganize their stock. While we did not directly work with those struggling with poverty, helping to organize and store goods can go a long way in helping the workers accomplish their goals. Feeding someone can be beneficial for a few hours, but this indirect service can benefit all those involved for weeks to come. Every day that the group works together, I notice that our teamwork continues to grow. As Jennifer told us what needed to be done, we worked together to accomplish all of her tasks while having fun doing it. One of my favorite parts of the day was seeing the smile on Jennifer’s face after we finished. She was overjoyed to see how organized her facility was after we worked on it. As our days progress, I am happy to see how our teamwork increases as we work together towards a common goal.

Switching it up once again! This is Victoria Webb, also known as the tomato dicing queen. After we finished up our service for the Family and Children’s Place, we went back and had an eye-opening conversation with the entire group. Throughout this conversation, we explored our own identities, encouraged to find similarities among the group, as well as to recognize and validate the differences in experiences of others. During the second activity, in order to learn more about our team members, we were asked about times where we felt included on campus, times when we did not, and asked about our own biases. This allowed us to learn more about our group and to learn and work through our own biases we held about the trip. We then had talks about how our own biases and identities could affect our biases and experiences. This allowed others to learn about the terms of intersectionality and privilege if they were unsure on how privilege works.

This day has a huge educational components to provide a solid foundation and background. This allows us to better understand the social issues at hand. Through our Wealth Distribution Awareness trip, there is a huge emphasis on awareness. Without it, how would be able to let others know of the social issues that exist? Being aware helps spread awareness, our first and foremost goal of the trip.

Day 1 Perspective by Maya Bian 

Today was the first day of service on our ASB trip. Our theme is centered around ‘wealth distribution awareness’, so our service focuses on learning about the challenges people in poverty face and how to best serve and help those communities. We had a really early morning (woke up at 5:45 AM) in order to make it in time to the Jeff Street Baptist Community to help with some of their outreach initiatives aimed at helping people in need. When we arrived, the pastor, Cindy, spoke to us about the importance of providing a comfortable and welcoming environment for displaced or homeless persons. She spoke about the history of work the church has done in the community, including the creation of Choices, Inc., which provides housing for a multitude of individuals and families who otherwise wouldn’t have places to stay. After she spoke to us, we broke into two groups; one of which I was in that stayed at the Church to make and serve breakfast for the homeless, as a part of a daily program the Church puts on, and another that painted an apartment unit in one of the housing options that Choices provides, that was being prepared for the arrival of an elderly woman who had been forced out of her home by con artists. 

We used 120 eggs to create a number of breakfast burritos, guided by Larry, an active volunteer and cook at the Church. He instructed us through the process, and with six of us completing the task, we finished cooking in about 40 minutes. What was amazing was that Larry would do the same thing multiple times a week, serving the same amount of people, but all by himself. It made me think about the huge impact that even one person can make—Larry provided a much needed meal by simply caring and lending a couple hours a week. And the appreciation felt by those who received a meal was expressed by ‘thank you’s’ and smiles. 

After the breakfast, our group headed to the property the other group had gone to, to do some yard work while they continued painting. We sawed at thick, overgrown branches that covered a fence, and deconstructed a large pile of branches and limbs. During our work, we noticed a man coming down the street. He was stumbling sluggishly side to side, very often becoming off-balanced and falling down. He ran at the wall of the building next to the side walk, and when he fell, started moaning while lying on the ground. The man who was assisting us who was affiliated with Choices, Brian, immediately recognized the man as under the influence of ‘spice,’ or what we later found out was synthetic marijuana. He called the police, and after awhile it and an ambulance arrived as well. He told us that the man would most likely be held for 72 hours to detox, and that afterward, would be offered the choice to go through rehabilitation. It was the most sobering moment of the day—to witness the severe effects of a drug that had far-reach in the homeless community from a place of privilege across the street, volunteering in the hopes of helping that community. It brought into context the complex and real issues that some people in that community struggle with, and brought to question how we can help them.

Our last service activity of the day was volunteering at a newly opened thrift store to sort through all their donations. It was opened by Louisville Rescue Mission as a way to raise funds from the larger community to support initiatives to help at-risk youth and homeless persons. Our work there, as a group of 15 people, cut down on time the organizers would have to spend on straight labor, so that they can better focus their talents on planning the initiatives the money generated by the store goes to. So although it was tedious and more of indirect service to the community, it was an important site to go to, and helped emphasize the importance of every form of volunteer activity.

Day One Perspective by Julia Dergunov

Today, we went to two different places but just this one day has already been extremely thought provoking. First, we went to Jeff Street Baptist Community.  In this area of Louisville, the places where a majority of these people used to live have been reconstructed into more expensive artsy, urban areas leaving them homeless and this occurs in a large amount of cities.  A few of my group members and I were randomly chosen to make and serve egg burritos for the homeless people that go there to get breakfast on the daily. We had the privilege of having direct interactions and seeing the positive impacts that doing what seems to be the most simplest tasks can give at the very beginning of the trip. In giving these people breakfast, you saw the different ways that they approached it but from just about every single person, I noticed how much they appreciated it.  Next, I joined the other group who was painting an apartment for a woman who has recently become homeless. That was an indirect interaction, but knowing the situation behind what you're doing gave a greater motivation to do the best in painting for this women. Later in the day, we went to a thrift shop that opened two days ago where we organized all of the new things that people have dropped off. We made it much easier on the women who were in charge of the store. It was an eye opener to the different income situations that thrift stores apply to. One focal point of our trip to Louisville is that we are here to learn about wealth distribution, not to change it. How can we learn about something like this and not attempt to  change it? Today, I have learned about the little impacts that you can give to others through your actions that can change their day (serving breakfast) or year (painting an apartment).   

Perspective of Day 1 by Alec Yen

Today gifted our team with a very positive start to our week-long adventure in Louisville. As the week progresses, we will continue to learn about wealth distribution so that we may develop our own understandings and bring these perspectives back to Knoxville. From serving breakfast to performing yard work, our first-day experiences have been extraordinarily eye-opening and rewarding.

To start off the day early at 6:30a.m, we began our day cooking and serving breakfast for Jeff Street Baptist Community, an organization that prepares breakfast meals for the homeless. Our mentor was a retired schoolteacher who regularly gave his time to help prepare these meals. We cooked breakfast burritos, efficiently delivered food, and learned a great deal from a very wise mentor. His insights toward the helpfulness of the Jeff Street community demonstrated how powerful of an impact that even a small group of people can make. Their small group's selflessness benefits such an enormous population of the disenfranchised. For example, they serve dozens of individuals who have been disadvantaged or wronged in their lives. By being able to give them a warm breakfast, they are able to brighten their days even just the slightest bit. I saw this firsthand, as many offered genuine gratitude towards our work in preparing breakfast, emphatically expressing their appreciation.

After serving breakfast, we volunteered across the block at the MaryJane Toney House, a housing unit made for the homeless and funded by Choices, Inc. Our team was split into two groups, one of whom painted the house while the other cleaned the nearby yards. I worked in the yard, clearing out dead branches and transporting them to nearby dumpsters. While this experience did not give us direct interactions with the homeless, we were privileged with the opportunity to work with Brian, a man affiliated with these housing units. In many ways, he served as an inspiration to us, as he spoke to us about his viewpoints toward helping the homeless, especially during and after a first-hand experience with a man on the street suffering from drug overdose. As we watched him helplessly struggle to stand and walk, I felt a strange instinct to look away and tense up, ready for any potential threat. But in my anxiety, Brian took the initiative to call the police - not to arrest the man, but to assist and inspire him. He explained that by getting him to a hospital, his life could turn around by waking up sober and healthier in a comfortable environment. He explained that while the man’s position suffering from overdose was not necessarily his fault, the experience of being helped by emergency personnel was his chance to take responsibility for his life. This was truly inspirational, compelling me to think about my biases and perceptions toward the homeless.

Growing up, I have been raised with an instinctive distrust and fear towards the homeless. Today’s experiences have exposed me to a completely different world from the one I have lived for the past eighteen years. The world is too vast to be secluded to one’s own biases. There are too many people, perspectives, and possibilities for volunteers such as ourselves to merely scratch the surface on the topic of wealth distribution. I look forward to the rest of the week as I not only work to learn more about socioeconomic inequalities in Louisville but also stimulate my personal development as an informed and active citizen in wealth distribution awareness.