Poverty, environmental crises, hunger… We are familiar with these overarching issues which span across our globe, but what does it look like to specifically alleviate some of these day-to-day struggles when engaging with these issues? Food insecurity is a world-renowned obstacle faced daily by numerous people who come from various backgrounds. Food insecurity can be defined as, “…when people can’t access the food, they need to live their fullest lives” (feedingamerica.org). This broad overview calls upon a multitude of ways you and I can lend a helping hand, so let’s delve into how I’ve volunteered and the other types of work we can do to support this issue as well.
Last week on Friday January 19th, I traveled to Mensa Giovanni Paolo II, a soup kitchen that is associated with Caritas Diocesana di Roma. According to their website, “Caritas is an expression of the commitment of the Church of Rome in the testimony of solidarity towards disadvantaged people, for human development, social justice and peace” (caritasroma.it). As we walked into the soup kitchen, I noticed how welcoming the staff was. They gave us a tour shortly after our arrival which was separated into the different tasks, we would variously be participating in. The distinctive separation of tasks highlighted the multitude of working initiatives a soup kitchen needs in order to produce a progressive flow of people coming both in and out of the facility. From check-in at the beginning, to clean-up at the end, there were numerous tasks for each volunteer to engage with.
I worked at the second stage of checking-in with head volunteers Maurizio and Rita. Both explained our duties in depth solely in Italian using hand gestures which was helpful. With three semesters of Italian under my belt, I can pick up the basics which have been extremely useful so far during my time here in Rome. This furthermore helped me engage with the local community who come to this soup kitchen, which felt beyond rewarding. More on this in a second though! Back to my work environment, this section of the facility had four stations: check-in at the computer and then check-in with your ID/paperwork to provide a signature and retrieve a ticket at one of the three stations with binders. Working with three fairly large binders and a big crowd of people, this was a fast-paced environment which speaks volumes to the amount of people who rely on soup kitchens like this one for daily meals. Yes, did I mention? This soup kitchen is open Monday to Monday. 7 days a week from 10:30-1:30.
As I was checking people in one-by-one, flipping to their page, having them sign their paperwork and handing them their food ticket, I couldn’t help to notice the diversity in people who were coming in from age to gender to race. Engaging with volunteer opportunities surrounding food insecurity never fails to remind me of how you never know what someone may be going through. No struggle looks the same on any person. Trying my best to read people as they came in, I would occasionally ask, “come stai?” Whenever I asked this though, I got confused faces from the community. I couldn’t tell if it was because they weren’t expecting me to speak Italian or if they weren’t expecting me to ask how they were at all. Either way, after the brief puzzlement, I was able to engage with people about their day which was heart-warming in terms of social interactions with different people. I had some people who wanted to converse with me and others who helped me find their paperwork to sign and get their ticket as fast as possible – Either way, I understood each encounter and where it may have been coming from. Overall, I appreciated the sociability this task involved and would love to work on this side again during my study abroad experience.
As 1:30 approached, it was all hands-on deck for clean-up. No one was ever stationary which became mind boggling to find out that sometimes they have little volunteers making people have to double and triple-up on tasks. As we were cleaning up, many goodbyes and ‘thank yous’ were exchanged with the local community. The volunteers in which I traveled with then all sat together and had the same meal they were serving that day allowing us to converse and debrief about our different jobs, experiences, and interactions.
When I was younger, I used to volunteer at Feed my Starving Children in Illinois. Similarly, to the soup kitchen, this was a fast-paced environment with many separate parts, but the goal this time was to pack as much food as possible for a specific destination that was given prior to the start of the session. This experience is ingrained in my mind as it brought strangers together over a topic of passion. We got to see how many bags we collectively packed at the end with numbers then demonstrating how many people we were able to feed, which was rewarding.
Similarly, last year, I took a pottery class. In no way did I think this class would correlate with food insecurity, yet it did. We worked over the course of three weeks to make as many bowls as possible for The Empty Bowls Project. This was a fundraiser where people would pay to receive a handmade bowl, have a meal inside it, and learn about food insecurity. The proceeds then all went to a local food pantry in Greencastle, Indiana in which we coincidentally volunteered at as well.
All three of these experiences were geographically in a different place which puts emphasis on the global issue in which food insecurity is. Feed my Starving Children and my pottery making class was engaging with hunger behind the scenes which is beyond important, but my experience here in Rome at the soup kitchen allowed me to physically connect with the community in which we were serving, which was powerful. I am grateful for all three of these opportunities and want to use my time here to engage in similar efforts towards world hunger and other profound issues.
I hope this post encourages you to reflect on how you can get involved no matter where you are. Beyond these three frames of volunteer work, we can also donate, support food banks, reduce food waste, and so much more. The links below are resources to help generate and explain more ways to get involved and serves as direct places where you can donate.
Thank you for reading,
Madison Rodriguez
Resources/ACT NOW!
Caritas Roma Soup Kitchen – Donation link available!