Service for AMY's Place: 3-11-16

The Flying Squirrels gathered together again to start their spring season off with a service bang! Keeping with the theme of homelessness that the Flying Squirrels have been working so intimately with, we shifted our focus to buying, preparing and serving a meal to homeless or previously homeless teens. The wonderful venue for this? Amy's Place. You can read about Amy's Place mission (and find out what AMY stands for) at their website here.

Choppers chopping away at some veggies

We met our goals of collaboratively shopping for groceries (we found everything surprisingly at Cash and Carry!), then collaboratively cooking several lasagnas, cookies, and caesar salad. Girls were super motivated every step of the way-- From chopping, to layering lasagnas, to bagging cookies, to running the dishwasher over and over again, the Flying Squirrels worked hard to cook food with love. Shout out to the Bellingham Co-Housing Kitchen for the use of their space-- what a great venue for our time together. 

Izzy may have liked this lasagna a lot...

As our lasagnas bubbled in the oven, we reviewed an exercise described here about privilege and inequality of opportunity. This led to a powerful discussion about the road blocks to success many people face, and helped remind us of our own privilege and the good fortune we share to have a safety net (if you'd like, you could see if your daughter remembers the concept of a safety net). We got into solid conversations about homelessness, barriers to "breaking the cycle" of homelessness, digging deep into the hearts of the Flying Squirrels.

After a quick zip over on the bus to Amy's Place headquarters, we discovered that it was indeed tasty, if the response of participants was our measure. They piled up plates with gusto, and came back for more... and more. We served them lasagna, salad, dessert, soda, and basic need items that they also obviously appreciated. There were leftovers, so we sat down with the participants to learn more of their lives. We listened to their struggles, to what they do during the day, to their adventures for food and a safe sleeping place (think.. roofs, under bridges, etc.), and to much of their expressed gratitude. The girls connected deeply with many of the meal's attendees.

What did they serve us? Expanded awareness, understanding, empathy, honesty, reality, kindness, open-mindedness, acceptance, trust. And more. Some highlighted quotes from the meal attendees below:

The Squirrels with a meal attendee and her dog

"Don't ever give up." 

"Stay in school. "

"Keep your head down and work hard. Don't care if others think you're  weird or a geek. Be that way. You'll come out on top. "

"Being homeless is HARD. "

"Make good choices" 

"I go exploring. Have walked all over Whatcom county."

Friday was a kind-of life-changing service day, that we anticipate will resonate for the Flying Squirrels for a long, long time. And really, it doesn't get much better than that.

-Hannah

Our Words of the Day? "Giving more than receiving" 

Mottos Especially Alive Today: Our Cups Overflow, Safety First, All Things Are Connected, We're All Teachers, Attitude of Gratitude, Be Here Now

To see more photos of our day, click here!