Charlie, Kevin, and I arrived a few minutes late to our delivery shift at Project Angel Heart, assuming to be reprimanded, even though we had called ahead. I was initially surprised at how nice and accommodating Anne was, but came to find all those at Project Angel Heart shared these qualities. We grabbed our food and thankfully, Kevin had GPS on his iPhone, so we managed to find our route to our first destination. We found the neighborhood to be rather nice and suburban, with no obvious signs of economic constraints, which was not exactly a shock, but was surprising. The biggest drawback we found to the delivery shift was the poor directions we had received and the even poorer organization of destinations these directions provided. They were quite inefficient in regards to fuel. As we arrived at the first home, we were surprised at the condition of the woman who answered the door (our first client). Expecting someone who could barely walk, should be bed-ridden, and was on the brink of death, we were warmly welcomed by a woman in seemingly modest spirits who looked as average as anyone else you would normally see.
As the trip continued—far longer than we expected it to (nearly five hours of driving and delivering)—we found ways to keep ourselves entertained and found out quite a bit about each other. The clients, for the most part, seemed average or normal or whatever you want to call them. Anyway you call it, they did not look out of the ordinary at all and other than the one person who did not answer, every delivery worked out quite well and virtually flawlessly. For the one client who did not answer we were forced to call PAH and ask what to do. Although we did not feel comfortable with just leaving the client’s food outside the apartment entrance, PAH told us there was nothing else we could do. This did worry us quite a bit, but, as there was nothing else we could do, we did our best to ignore the bad feelings this created.
The trip, all in all, was a success and a very beneficial experience for me especially. I have not volunteered in a long time and doing this work felt great. I know this service is a dire need for those clients of PAH and I was very glad to be a part of it. I found the entire ordeal quite inspiring and fulfilling and I also learned quite a lot about my own expectations in a service experience. I know now that I should go in with a much more open mind and not jump to initial conclusions about the are I will be serving in or those people I am serving. I used to see service in a much different light than I do now. I used to think those that needed help would obviously appear to need help, not just look like your average American, however that is defined. I now realize that all people, no matter what they look like, could or do require some service that can be provided by someone else.
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Zach's experience with the delivery shift seemed a little different, in c=some ways, than mine was. I was indeed a little bit surprised at the "normality" or "average" state of the clients to whom we delivered food, but it sounds like the delivery process was a little more difficult for Zach than it was for my group. Zach expresses that the delivery shift took about five hours and was inefficient in terms of fuel; however, when I did the delivery shift it only took us about two hours, the directions we received were fairly clear, and we also used a GPS which allowed us to map out an extremely efficient route. It sounds like Zach's group ran into much more difficulty than mine did!
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