I went to Hour children who helps incarcerated and formerly incarcerated women. I hungout with the kids of these women (and some other kids from the community). I had a lot of thoughts about any harm my community service efforts could be doing.
Today my group and I went to Hour Children in the Queens area.
Hour Children’s mission is to help incarcerated and formerly incarcerated women and their children successfully rejoin the community. I would encourage you to visit their website to learn more: http://www.hourchildren.org
We learned that if the children are born in the prison in NY, they are allowed to stay in the in a facility in the prison for up to 18 months. Renee then told us that in Des Moines, at the Mitchell women's prison, a baby would be taken away from it's mother only 3 days after it's born. Maybe they believe that having the babies in the facility is too dangerous. Maybe there are political and physical barriers. But if we know that this is an issue, we should be pushing to help fix them. It is critical for the baby to be with the mother for the first 6-18 months. Babies that are separated at birth or at too young of an age will have a harder time as an adult, statistically. If we take the babies away from their mothers to early we will help create the same struggle cycle. Renee told us a very unique story yesterday. She asked, "What if we're standing by the river and we saw a cat floating down the river?" Obviously someone said ( I think it was Mark), "Well it's not a dog so..." Pretty funny 😂😂. But all jokes aside, she continued, "We save it right? Well, what if we come back the next day and see another cat? And the next day another? What if we decide to walk up the river and see a hole in the fence where cats keep getting through?" Obviously then we have to patch the hole. We need to go to the source and fix the problem. I also thought that we should educate the cats. Tell them, "If you go down this path you're going to die. I don't know where you're going but there are better options". We need to be aware of our actions and if theyre simpy pulling the cat out of the water, or patching the hole.
When we got to Hour Children we were greeted nicely and brought across the street where some of us would be helping with the children. Hour Children holds a daycare for people in the community, as well as the children of recently prisoned women. Good daycare can be hard to find so having a place for the locals to go was great to hear. Hour Children also has a food pantry for people in the community in need.
When we got to the facility, Linda, our guide, told us that we could either play with the children or work at the food pantry. I wasn't sure which one I wanted to do. Would I be awkward around the children? Would I be able to help them? When she asked who wanted to do the pantry, half of the group raised their hands.
So children it was.
Linda, which by the way means beautiful in Spanish, brought us to 3 rooms. The first was filled with babies, all of them sitting in high chairs, all very cute☺️ The second was filled with toddlers, whose ages probably ranged from 1-2 years old. They seemed happy and excited to have guests.
It's interesting how, as a child, our parents shield us from a lot of the bad in the world. It was amazing to see these children, whose mothers have had a rough time, playing and enjoying being a kid. They appeared to have a normal life, from what I could see at the daycare.
The third room we entered would be my room. We entered and almost immediately a little girl grabbed my hand and led me to the toys. I had some immediate concerns. I wondered, should I go with her? Will she have a hard time letting me go at the end of the day? I looked back to see if it was alright to go with her but before I could turn around, I heard someone say, "you've been chosen" I assumed it was safe to stay. Michelle, from our group, also hungout in the room and just like me, a little one latched onto her quickly. The room held about 10 kids and most of them seemed to have no issue inviting us to play. The were very trustworthy right from the get-go. We played, had snacks, played some more, had lunch then laid them down for nap time. It was a good time😊 I tried to help a little girl fall asleep for nap time. As I sat there with her, I couldn't help but think, what happens if she falls alseep and I'm not there when she wakes up? Will she ask for me and her new friends? I left before she fell asleep, all of the visitors were too much of a distraction. In my opinion, it was better.
When we got back to YSOP, who we will be working with this week, our leader Lisa asked some thought provoking questions. Here's the link for YSOP, too. Please take some time to check them out: http://www.ysop.org Anyways, to start off with, I told her and the group how I was "chosen" and I raised some of the concerns I had with this. She told me that YSOP people go there frequently and that the children mostly trust people in the YSOP shirts they had given us. It eased my nerves, I did feel a little bad for not being as special, but I felt better. I would feel awful if the children asked for me or for one of the other helpers the next day. One of the questions she asked was, "Are we harming them in any way?" I brought up what I had been thinking during nap time. One idea Robert Lupin talks about in his book Toxic Charity is the unintended consequences our actions have, whether they're good or bad. I was excited to be going in and helping but was it actually helping? Is it helping the child who gets some new friends for the day? Or is it helping me feel better about myself for having served the community? When we serve at food pantries or donate our old food, are we really helping those in need? Do they want our stinky old sardines? Are they going to enjoy eating them? Or are we helping ourselves feel better by donating, even if it isn't effective. By hearing what the community service vets have to say I have been able to learn a lot about the side effects of my service and various factors to consider.
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