Here's the song we used in our latest reflection just in case you want to reflect on it too.

Mr. Wendal Lyrics
Artist: Arrested Development

Here, have a dollar,
in fact no brotherman here, have two
Two dollars means a snack for me,
but it means a big deal to you
Be strong, serve God only,
know that if you do, beautiful heaven awaits
That's the poem I wrote for the first timeI saw a man with no clothes, no money, no plate
Mr.Wendal, that's his name,
no one ever knew his name
cause he's a no-one
Never thought twice
about spending on a ol' bum,
until I had the chance to really get to know one
Now that I know him, to give him money isn't charity
He gives me some knowledge,
I buy him some shoes
And to think blacks spend all that money on big colleges,
still most of y'all come out confused continued below...

[CHORUS:] Go ahead, Mr.Wendal (2x)

Mr.Wendal has freedom,
a free that you and I think is dumb
Free to be without the worries of a quick to diss society
for Mr.Wendal's a bum
His only worries are sickness
and an occasional harassment
by the police and their chase
Uncivilized we call him,
but I just saw him eat off the food we waste
Civilization, are we really civilized, yes or no ?
Who are we to judge ?
When thousands of innocent men could be brutally enslaved and killed over a racist grudge
Mr.Wendal has tried to warn us about our ways
but we don't hear him talk
Is it his fault when we've gone too far,
and we got too far, cause on him we walk
Mr.Wendal, a man, a human in flesh,but not by law
I feed you dignity to stand with pride,
realize that all in all you stand tall

Mr.Wendal, yeah yeah yeah, Lord, Mr.Wendal

Taskforce for the Homeless

Tuesday we went to the Metro Taskforce for the Homeless building at Peachtree andPine in down town Atlanta. Our group toured the building with the AmeriCorps coordinator of the site. There were other AmeriCorps people there wearing shirts that matched Ms. Hitchens.

We saw what will be a coffee shop, the computer lab made of dinosaur computers, the future site of a roof garden, the garage where people stay and sometimes sleep, the lobby that women can sit in at night, the large over-flow shelter, the future restaurant and kitchen, and lots of other spaces. The building was donated to the Taskforce to help the homeless and that is all it can be used for, even though people would pay lots of money to make it into shops or apartments.

We helped out some in the room that will be a coffee shop by filling in some holes in the floor and the wall. Some of us want to go back to check out this community when it gets going and have some coffee and see the view from the roof.

We learned about homelessness in Atlanta, saw lots of homeless people, ate our lunch in a park where people were doing urban camping. One guy we shared our lunch with said that he was going to have a home in rehab starting the next day.

The next day we reflected on our trip by taking a song and our memories to draw something that we thought of. We read the song by Arrested Development called Mr. Wendal; the song is about a homeless man. Some of us were offended by the part of the song that suggests that black people go to college only to come out confused. Ms. Hitchens says that it means that the singers are saying that black people need to help each other more.

I drew a picture or a super hero saying, "Empowering the community with food, energy, and water." Other people drew a circle of people holding hands, the garden on the roof that will grow eventually, a person receiving help and saying thankyou, and a hand giving money.

School now blocks blogspot (from Currey)

Well, our school has decided to block blogspot now, which makes it difficult to post each week. The students will still be typing up posts and sending them to me in an email and I'll post them from home. This week we are a little off, because we did not expect the site to be blocked.

On Monday we went to Cafe 458 again and we were asked to schedule another day. Hopefully we can fit in another day there before the end of the school year.

Our next trip for the service project is to the Task Force for the Homeless in Atlanta. Most likely our next post will be about that trip. We might blog about planning a closing experience, planning a Hunger Class or a visit to a community garden, or on the experiences of one of our students who has experienced homelessness.

answering your questions

All of the homeless people that we have worked with so far have been adults. But, we did pack diapers at the Atlanta Community Foodbank that went to other shelters across Northwest Georgia and the Atlanta area.

We haven't worked with any teenagers or kids yet. But, we think being a teenager and being homeless is the hardest. But, we don't know for sure because we haven't worked with kids or teenagers. All of the places we have helped at you had to be an adult to get help from them.

Cafe 458 Trip 1

What did you learn at cafe 458?

You don't have to look homeless to be homeless.
No matter how much some of us didn't want to do it in the beginning but, after a while we all were working hard we all have it in us.
Some of these homeless people are working hard to get jobs & a place to sleep. Cherry tomatoes make salads soggy.
"You can't reach over peoples food That's rude." I was suprised that the homeless people were kind & thankful "we can't complain the food is free anyway."
To qualify people have to be working on a better life - job programs and recoverey programs people who won't commit to help & change then cafe458 will not feed them.
Even homeless people can have a normal life and act normal.
While there we met a man that use to be homeless himself and he had turned his life around.

You can learn more about Cafe 458 or find out how to volunteer there youself here:
http://www.cafe458.com/

food bank

After we went to the food bank I feel we made a difference.

while we were there we packed over 3,000 pounds of paper products.
You can visit the Atlanta Community Food Bank's webpage to find out more or to volunteer yourself at www.acfb.org.

Today we reflected on our visit to the bank by using photos from our visit. Some things people said were: that we made a difference, that we want to go back, and that we had fun.

Quotes from our vist:
About the feminine products some of us were packing, "You're gonna have to get them for your wife some day!"

About the job of taking boxes to be weighed.
"We don't have a lot to do."
"I know. That's the best part about this job!"

After we left the food bank we ended up sharing our left over lunch to homeless people in the park right outside of burnt down houses.

Reflections from 3/31/06

Homlessness makes us feel: selfish, sad, hopeful, angry, sorry, nobody deserves tobe homless & motivated to help.

Our projects make us feel: helpful, good & proud .

1st Month

I(Organizer) am going to review our first month during the project.
The activities group met for 2 days.During those 2 days The activities group taught our community about the price of housing in different states around the U.S.A.The methods of teaching i have learned were through math, social studies, reading,and our own designed floor plans.

All of our community called groups in Georgia that we could help.

The policy group researched panhandling and it's illegal in the metro Atlanta Tourist District. This group also looked into going into a City Council Meetings.

The scrap book took pictures and are printing them now.

Reflection1 from Currey

I (Currey) am working with a group of teenage guys on studying homelessness and poverty in Atlanta, GA. We broke up into committees to take charge of different parts of the project and chose a project leader from the group.

We volunteered at the Odyssey III homeless shelter for MLK day and I think this day of service inspired the guys to choose to work with the homeless for their service project. I (Currey) am volunteering through AmeriCorps with these guys and we had to choose a service learning project. I was so excited that the guys wanted to help the community in such an important and interesting manner.

Most of these reflection posts will be posted by the person who volunteered to be the Organizer for this service project on homelessness. He will report what we have done and how we feel about what we've done so far. I might interject sometimes, but I'll be sure to say it's me and not our Organizer.