I wanted to share with you some stories and information about the alternative spring break trip that I led students on last week. You are more then welcome to skim as necessary! Thanks for indulging me.

Last week, 12 students, another advisor and I all lived and worked in Tacoma, WA. The city is pretty much the Oakland of the Puget Sound - working class families, and a chip on its shoulder to the bigger, more touristy city close by. Still, this city is super cool - they have a Chihuly art glass museum downtown and awesome views of the Sound and Mt. Rainier. The weather was gray and rainy the whole week - what they say about the NW is true, i guess!

We stayed and mainly worked at the Tacoma Catholic Worker House. Together the organization owns 8 hours in a city block in between a newly regentrfied downtown and Hlltop, the worst part of the city. They have several men living with them in various houses who are either formerly homeless or developmentally disabled.

Most of the work we did for the Catholic Worker was general cleanup and maintenance. The guys who work at TCW are hysterical, dedicated, and terrible at maintenance. Seriously. One of them couldn't get their electric drill to work to put a screw in a post. I showed him that you could switch the direction of the drill to make it so that it actually pushed the screw in, and they acted like I had just invented the wheel.

JVC also has a house next door to TCW, so we also got to know the JVs volunteering them well (we also worked with them in some other sites detailed below). The Catholic Worker invited us all over for dinner every night, and it was really a treat to eat and chat with many members of the house after a day of work. We made them dinner on Friday night as a thank-you.

Our other main site was L'Arche Farms. L'Arche communities across the US house and care for adults with developmental disabilities, The Tacoma L'Arche community owns and operates a non-profit farm that it also employs its members at. We worked alongside them for two days, planting seeds, spreading manure, feeding chickens, and a lot more. It was awesome! So really great people working on the farm and they couldn't have been more accomodating and welcoming to us.

We also worked for a few days for Keep Them Fed and Warm (a homeless outreach program) and Nativy House (a homeless intake center) doing random tasks.

The people on the trip really made the experience. The Gonzaga students we went with were open, enegetic, and reflective. We all got to know each other pretty well when sleeping on the floor of a living room for a week straight! Like I said before, we also met and worked with some amazing people who truly care about the homeless and developmentally disabled (and who feel their own lives are bettered by the work they do).

We also got to know Fr. Bix, who is an 86 year old Jesuit living at the Catholic Worker. Bix is the type of guy who is welcoming and unintentionally hilarious. He also supports gay marriage in the church and women's ordination, and he just got out of jail after a couple of years because he was protesting nuclear weapons. Seriously, this guy is so cool. I really enjoyed my conversations with him!

All in all, it was a really, really great time. We learned a lot about the community (and dare I say it, about ourselves too!). And in the meanwhile, Gonzaga won the WCC and a Jesuit got elected Pope. A good week all around!

 

Now it's back to work. It's a strange transition back to "the grind" after a week of meaningful work and reflection. Such is life, I guess!