7 minute read
CREATING A COMMUNITY
CREATING A COMMUNITY, ONE BREAKFAST AT A TIME
Junior Rachel Pollack on how volunteering at a free community breakfast program became much more than a project requirement
The brick building on the hill is quiet with sleep, the valley below not yet illuminated. Headlights appear from a minivan rounding the corner and stopping below the front steps. The front door of the building swings open as a handful of teenagers emerge and climb into the van, still wiping the sleep from their eyes.
Less than thirty minutes later, they arrive. Walking into a big, empty dining hall, they are greeted by the smell of fresh coffee and the crackling of bacon. In the kitchen, more volunteers are already hard at work. As quickly as the students can tie their apron strings, they find where they can help and get to work.
An hour and a half of prep later, it begins. First as a trickle and then as a bustling rush, two hundred and fifty hungry strangers arrive looking for a warm breakfast. They leave a few hours later, their stomachs full, a community of friends.
Delphian Magazine: How long have you been doing this project?
Rachel: I started as a volunteer in my freshman year. Last September I became the student in charge. I estimate I’ve spent about two hundred hours on this project since I started.
DM: How does this project fit into your academic program requirements?
Rachel: For my form, there’s a required community service project that requires a high level of leadership and organization, with a minimum of twenty-five hours spent in the field.
So yes, this is my required community service project, but I completed the requirements for it months ago, and I’m now choosing to stay on it. I will have to turn the project over to another student before I graduate next year, but I still have some things I want to accomplish to make it better. So I’m not ready to turn leadership over yet.
DM: What are your responsibilities as the student in charge of this project?
Rachel: I promote and organize a group of students to volunteer each weekend. Getting volunteers is usually easy because Delphian students typically understand that it’s our duty as humans in a moral society to want to help and give back to the community.
From there, I help train them so they are ready to be helpful when we’re working. Training is important because we are expected to do the assigned tasks properly. Our primary responsibilities are to cook, to serve, and to help keep dishes full.
Some tasks can be repetitive, such as chopping potatoes for three hours straight. But knowing that you’re doing it to provide for an entire community makes even these mundane tasks enjoyable. It’s a perspective that I think all of us get.
DM: What is it like serving a community of this size?
Rachel: It’s a bit of a rush. You don’t have a chance to stop. You’re just continuously going. You have no time to think about being tired, if you like it or not, or to get bored. You’re just working, working, working.
DM: What skills from the Delphi Program™ have you found to be helpful while working on this project?
Rachel: One of the first courses you do on Form 7 is called Education. In this course, you read L. Ron Hubbard’s philosophy on education, and you learn the importance of having a purpose and a goal for whatever you study or do.
When training new students on this project, I ask, “What is your purpose for doing this?” Some want to help, some want to learn, and some want to give back to the community. It’s not about waking up at 6:00 am. (I don’t think any of us like that). It’s about the bigger purpose we have to work towards that is important.
DM: What did you learn on this project that you didn’t expect to learn?
Rachel: I went into this project thinking, “I’m doing something providing for the less fortunate.”
After a few months, I realized this was not what I was doing.
In reality, this program breaks down barriers and provides a safe space to be a community–a space where we can communicate, get to know each other, eat, share stories, and laugh. There is much to learn from people who live in different environments and have different lives than what I am used to seeing.
It’s not about who’s providing what or who needs what. It’s about creating close-knit communities that care for each other. Rather than thinking things like, “I’m giving my resources to help,” this project has allowed me to evolve my viewpoint to wanting to be part of something larger than just myself.
This realization is something very special to me.
DM: What challenges have you come up against and overcome being the student in charge of this project?
Rachel: There are a couple of things that I have run into. A big one is trying to get a group of teenagers, like myself, to have the correct viewpoint when they’re on this project. This project requires a certain level of professionalism that we aren’t required to have daily as teenagers.
I do this using a skill I learned from Delphian’s student council program: how to write a “hat,” the details and successful actions learned on a job written down for others to replicate and follow. The hat covers the importance of immersing ourselves in the group without excluding anyone. It also goes over how to take on an adult-like level of responsibility for our work.
DM: When you eventually transfer leadership of this project to another student, will you continue to help in your community?
Rachel: I’ve decided that the rest of my life is going to be one large community service project. I’m planning to graduate from Form 8 early so I have some time before I attend college to indulge in humanitarian work in a big way.
From there, whether I find another church to volunteer at near the college I’ll be attending, or through joining or starting programs within my college, I am going to keep serving my community for the rest of my life.
DM: What are your future college and career plans?
Rachel: At first, when I was around six years old, I wanted to be an astronaut (because who doesn’t), but it was around my tenth or twelfth birthday when I remember really knowing what I wanted to do. I remember saying to my parents, “I’m going to be running the U.S. government,” and my parents were like, “Yeah, okay. We’ll see.”
Now that I’ll soon be 18, and my plans haven’t really changed–matured maybe, but they haven’t changed–I think my parents are starting to take it more seriously too and understand that this is definitely not changing. And, yes, of course I am aware that I’m young, but I don’t plan to let that deter me.
My plan is to become a lawyer and then possibly go into politics or be a litigator or a judge–I haven’t decided. The big thing, and my purpose in life, is to use what I’ve learned to make big, meaningful changes. One of my main goals is to impact society by building strong communities where people can work together, communicate, connect, and learn from each other to make a positive difference.
