In the summer of 2020, right at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, my daughters and I started volunteering for Loaves and Fishes at Turning Point in Columbia, as people were needed to help serve food there and many volunteers had opted out because of the pandemic. Turning Point, which is housed in the Wilkes Blvd. United Methodist Church, is one of the main day shelters for those experiencing homelessness in the Columbia area. Every evening at 5:30 a meal is served. This act of service was a really great fit for me.
In 2018, I attended Ryan Dowd’s Librarian’s Guide to Homelessness training in Joplin, Missouri. I’ve since become very interested in assisting with unsheltered advocacy in the Mid-Missouri area. Ryan Dowd offers profoundly helpful tools for assisting the unsheltered at the library on a professional level as a public librarian, while on a personal level, he also helped me confront my own biases and to understand how unhoused people perceive the world. One of Dowd’s common refrains is this: empathy is the answer. What many people who have never experienced homelessness don’t realize is that most unsheltered persons come from backgrounds of severe poverty and have experienced serious trauma. Many of us can’t even imagine this place.
Volunteering has helped me a great deal in my current position — which is that of a public services librarian. I was able to see the complex humanity of the unsheltered folks we serve. Very often when I’m working with them at the library it is in a more formal, professional capacity. Even though we engage as a library with unsheltered advocacy, such as the poverty simulation with the Missouri Community Action Network, I personally hadn’t been involved in ground-level work until volunteering at Turning Point. What better way to engage with others than to serve them delicious hot food? It is the ultimate act of giving.
I became acquainted with a wide range of people who came to the Turning Point to get a meal and I always volunteered to serve. Serving food with a smile and a greeting was a great way to get to know all kinds of folks. We learned their stories; some tragic, some inspiring. Whole families would come to be served at Loaves and Fishes and my daughter Lillian, who was 10 at the time, was a welcome sight to the children who had come to get a meal with their families.
Finally, there is this: I’m a person of faith and have always been compelled to a life of service. I believe, whatever your spiritual orientation, that humanitarian works such as assisting at Turning Point are extraordinarily fulfilling. Aside from the good work I do as a public librarian, I’ve never been able to truly live my beliefs in an outreach capacity. Working at Turning Point offered me a chance to do this. Although life with two teenagers has been busy and I’ve been pulled away recently, I can’t wait to go back and help at Turning Point again soon!
If you want to find out more about volunteering at Turning Point and other places around Columbia that assist those who are experiencing poverty and housing issues, Love Columbia is one of the best places to find these opportunities. You can also find additional resources through our excellent topic guide about volunteering: https://www.dbrl.org/research-and-learn/help-social-services/volunteering-guide.
