Soup Kitchen Experience

I, like many people, find myself not leaving campus very often, and when I do, it's usually to go outside of Meadville. My freshmen year, I worked at the public library, and so I was walking through Meadville almost every day and interacting with the people of the town very regularly. It made me feel like a part of the town because I had that connection, and being in the soup kitchen had a similar effect. While it was only for a day, volunteering in the soup kitchen made me feeling like I was connecting with the people of Meadville and had some impact on them.

I also feel like working in the soup kitchen and getting to see and talk to some of the people from town also made them seem more human. As we’ve discussed, it’s easy to view food as something that should be earned, and view those who need help getting food as lazy, evil people. However, working in the soup kitchen brought us in contact with many polite, friendly people. While serving food, I heard nothing but ‘thank you’s” as we gave people what they asked for, which made me helpful.

There was also a pretty diverse group of people who’d come into the soup kitchen, that it was impossible to understand the justification of any stereotypes about them. There were young children, parents, elderly people, people of all races and body types who came in for lunch, and many of them were verbal about their gratitude towards us being there.