On Wednesday our groups went separate ways again. Half of us headed up to the Northside Community Center, while the other half returned to the Five Star Senior Center where we had met Carl Hatcher on the first day of our work.
Soon after arriving at the Northside Community Center we were introduced to Monica, one of the center's directors. She led us down into a basement, and as soon as she opened the door we were overwhelmed by all of the action taking place in such a tiny space! There, under low ceilings and in close quarters, were at least 20 workers preparing for a day of home delivered meals. As catering company employees hauled in coolers filled with hot meals, delivery runners set up row after row of brown paper bags ready to be stocked with cold items that would be served with the hot lunch. Workers hollered at one another across the room, plastic bins of milk cartons and rolls were tossed to waiting workers, and there we stood in the middle of it all!
Within a few minutes Miss Lula, manager of the home delivered meal program, put us to work. Most of the students were assigned to a delivery person and began stuffing paper sacks with cold items. A few of us were sent to a back room where hot meals were being separated and counted based on each route, making sure to account for diabetic and low-sodium meals as needed. Once all of the meals were packed into travel cooler/warmer bags, it was time to hit the road for delivery!
Lucky for us, one of the delivery pairs (each pair has a runner and a driver) was missing a driver that day, so while a few students headed out on other routes, most of us packed back into our van and played chauffer for JoAnn. We drove her route through the neighborhoods of North St. Louis, running meals into apartment buildings, stopping at houses, and keeping tabs on who needed specific meals due to dietary restrictions. It was unbelievable to see how much JoAnn knew about the seniors she served!
When our deliveries were complete, we spent our lunch break with the seniors back at the center. We were each able to spend some time chatting with seniors around the room and had some really interesting discussions about our generation's dependence on cell phones, television, and the Internet. As several of the seniors finished up their lunches and began playing cards, we joined in and learned a new game, "Kings in the Corner." It is very similar to Solitaire, but played in more of a spider-web format instead of parallel rows. Pat, our instructor, was quite sassy and insisted on double-checking each play that we made by looking at our hand!
That afternoon, Joel and Sarah worked in the offices and helped to manage the paperwork for seniors who were coming to apply for financial assistance from the center. The rest of us went around the corner to a massive old building. Once the first hospital for African Americans in the city, this facility has been remodeled into a gorgeous complex of apartments for seniors and the disabled. There we assisted Monica in conducting some assessment for the home delievered meal program. Each senior in the facility who received home delivered meals was required to sign a form certifying that their information could be shared with other organizations whose services might be applicable to them. Of course, the form stated that simple fact with four paragraphs of legal jargon! The students took turns reading the form outloud to the seniors, explaining any confusion, and obtaining signatures.
A highlight of this part of our day was when we knocked on the door of an elderly woman with a heart condition. She was pretty flustered that we had gotten her out of bed during her afternoon rest! She sat down in a chair with her back facing the door as Monica explained to her why we were there. Monica said, "And now Melissa will read you the form that you need to sign," and just then Melissa stepped around to the front of the chair in order to read to the woman. Apparently the woman was not expecting to see a young, beautiful girl with a huge smile because she took one look at Melissa and just threw her head back with laughter! She was so overjoyed to see a young person and just smiled at Melissa the entire time she read. It was amazing how the face of a young person could transform a grumpy old woman into a joyful senior!
That evening we went to St. Louis' famous Italian district, The Hill, for dinner. We enjoyed a delicious meal at Zias, complete with salads, bread, heaping bowls of pasta, and even a free slice of cheesecake for Tokela, our birthday girl!
We capped off the evening with a birthday cake of our own back at the church.
At first we ran into a little stagnation because the worker did want any help from us because they felt as though by us helping them their pay would be decreased, but soon enough their boss came out and cleared everything up and let them know that we were just volunteers. I was assigned to a table with Mr. Moose and Mrs. Donna.
What a pair! Where do I begin? After packing our lunches we had to wait because we were short a few meals so we had to wait until those meals arrived at the center. After waiting for thirty minutes the meals arrived and we were on our way. The delivery began with me crouching up in the back of this tiny red car with the meals stacked on the seat beside me then heading out to see the city while delivering meals to those elderly who were confine to their homes. The trip with Mrs. Donna and Mr. Moose was the greatest ride I have every had because they made me laugh the entire time. They cussed and fussed and it was such a great time.
One thing that I really liked about having the opportunity to deliver meals with them was that they were so personal with all of the elderly (they knew them by face and name). They showed such enthusiasm for their job and seemed to care about every single person they delivered to.
Hello, my name is Countess, and Wednesday of our Spring Break trip was one of my favorite days of the trip! My group, the Awful Waffles, and the Banana Bandits were assigned to do meals on wheels at the North Side Senior Center. I had no idea what exactly we would be doing as volunteers, but as soon as we got there, the advisor of the center just kind of threw us in the chaos! As soon as we went downstairs to help fill the bags woth meals, it was like a mad house that was very well organized. Everybody was moving very quickly in their different directions. Each of my group members just kind of found a table to help with, and joined into the madness!
After all the meals were packed into the car, we were split up and I ended up delivering meals with Donna and Mr. Moose. They were two of the most interesting people I had ever met! They were so entertaining, I could barely catch my breath the entire time I was with them because I was laughing so hard at their humor towards one another! Another reason I could not catch my breath is because when I was not laughing, I was running to different houses delivering the meals. There I was, running from door to door, with Donna right along with me (although I was trying to keep up with her!). The entire time we were either running or rushing from door to door, only because we had an additional route that someone else had left that morning.
On Tuesday we split up into our two groups and went to the houses that were assigned to us on Monday. My group, The Extreme Dream Team, and I had the WONDERFUL pleasure of going to Ms. Celeste Stewart's house. I feel like I have just adopted another grandmother!! At her house there where still a couple of things that still needed to be done so we jumped right on it.
We started by clearing off her back porch so it could be hosed down and cleaned. Abhilash got a little carried away with the hose and started hosing us down along with the porch, lol. 
While the porch was drying the group split up to either clean her kitchen cabinets or some chandelier pieces, I got the chandelier pieces. As Ms. Stewart was showing us how to clean the pieces she was unscrewing the previously lit light bulbs with her bare hands. I asked her if the light bulbs were hot and she assured me that they were just warm, so I began to unscrew a bulb. Needless to say that the bulb was extremely HOT!! I guess since Ms. Stewart was a hair-dresser her hands were used to handling hot things, my hands however were not lol. By the time Ashley and I were finished cleaning the chandelier, the porch was dry enough to go down in the basement and get the lawn chairs. 
At first going down to the basement kind of scared me, but once someone told me that she had her salon downstairs I couldn't wait to see. The basement was a normal looking with tons of boxes and clutter. I was disappointed because I was looking for this huge salon type set up taking over the whole downstairs level, but once i moved around the corner i saw the cozy little nook with old school hair dryers, washing bowls, and a styling chair, it was like someone cut out one station at a salon and placed it in Ms. Stewart's basement. It was sooo cute, but soon I remembered that i was supposed to be helping the rest of the group bring chairs to the porch so I quickly left and finished helping the group.
Later on in the day while we were eating lunch one of Ms. Stewart's friends came over and they went to the basement so that Ms. Stewart could do her hair. Needless to say, all the girls were interested and curious and one by one we slipped downstairs to see Ms. Stewart at work. It was amazing and you could definitely tell that she was in her element. When she was done doing her friends hair we all kind of sat around and talked but what we really wanted was for Ms. Stewart to do our hair!! 
It was me however, who had the lucky of having extremely bad split ends, so bad in fact that Ms. Stewart offered to clip my ends, YESS!!! It was great, I felt like I was in an old school beauty parlor, we were just talking and gossiping while she was doing my hair. I felt like we really bonded and we all we able to open up to her and to me at least she was family.
Along with being a fabulous hairdresser, Ms. Stewart is also an accomplished chef with a specialty in sweets mmmm. Monday she kept on talking about all the cakes and pies that she had made, and we had hoped that the day before we had dropped enough hints to let her know that we wouldn't mind at all if she made us a dessert. She got the hints!! After getting my hair down we all sat down around the kitchen table and ate homemade lemon meringue pie...AMAZING!!! I don't even like meringue but i ate every bit of this pie and could of gone back for seconds and thirds. 
After we ate the pie we all sat around the table and talked and talked and talked, unfortunately we were suppose to meet the other half of our group at the St. Louis Zoo and had to leave. I can honestly say that I love Ms. Stewart and wouldn't hesitate at the chance to visit her again before we leave.
Leaving Ms. Stewart was sad but the zoo was incredible. The St. Louis Zoo is free to the public. Normaly you would think that something free would be run down and unkept, but this was the complete opposite. The St. Louis Zoo is extremely big and has ALOT of animals and many different exhibits. It took us close to three hours to go through the whole zoo and there were still some parts that I missed. My favorite exhibit was the the Big Cats part of the zoo because hopefully i will be studying them in the future as my career!! There were tigers, snow leopards, and pumas at this zoo and I love every minute of it. The zoo was wonderul but it was truly a tiring day, so tiring that i fell asleep at the indoor primate exhibit lol.
The Morning
Anticipation was leaping out of my chest as we walked up to the entrance of Ms.Helen’s home. We were finally going to see what we traveled so far to do. Hauling equipment in my hands and walking up the stairs, I was last to enter the house. What I saw when I walked in the home words can’t describe. The challenge that I expected to have had increased ten times. The odor alone of the house was a challenge that was going to take a lot of work, and literally after a couple of minutes in the home, I was back outside gasping for a breath of fresh air. I had no idea the situation I had gotten myself into, but regardless I knew I was up for the challenge.
Ending the Day
Mrs. Helen was a wonderful person. Upon arriving at her house I was surprised to see this frail little elderly lady whom I had heard was a hoarder and into Star Wars. She was a very interesting person and I had some great experiences that included cleaning her home and talking to her.
Upon cleaning her home I found that she was a hoarder by nature and really felt like everything was important so she wanted to keep it all (including things that she even admitted were broken or unnecessary). In trying to clean out her living room which was her bedroom and most personal space I had to do a lot of persuading by using psychology so that we could clean effectively and keep what was really important and discard those things that she didn’t need and weren’t going to use. This area was the hardest to clean because she guarded it like a hawk, inquiring about each thing we touched. Cleaning other areas of her home (kitchen and porch) was not as hard because she was a little more lenient about what we could discard.
Upon talking to her I found that she was a hoarder because she felt as though she may never know when she would need the thing she threw away so she figured it would be best just to keep it all. Another reason was because she lived through the Depression and at that time the mindset was that everything had some type of values and it could always be used for other purposes.
Also, upon talking to her I found that she is a big fan of Harry Potter (she has all the books and video) and Star Wars (she has all the movies as well as signed autographs from all the cast members both past and present). Through conversing with her I also found that she wrote children books and that she started her own Star Wars fan club called …of which she was the President for multiple years. I had a very great experience cleaning with and talking to Mrs. Helen and even though she is elderly she is still very much so up to date (movies and books).
