Realizing all you have accomplished!

It is the end of a crazy week and I feel empowered at what we have accomplished and done in such a short time. I had several amazing client meetings today that I really needed to round this week out and even placed one family on a subsidized housing wait-list that was one 10 people long with 12 units opening up in a month. For those of you that have never dealt with subsidized housing before, this is a huge win (wait-lists are typically in the 2-3 year range and are several hundred people deep). I really needed that.

To sum up my week I'm just going to post an e-mail I sent to our Summer Fellows and Interns:
"I know it was a busy week, but we made it through. We are so appreciative of all the hard work put in this week!

I just pulled the CORI Report for this week and with an hour left to go in Friday; we assisted 82 unique clients this week in some form or another, applied for about 40 jobs, worked on 16 resumes, made 75 calls helping clients find housing, refereed to 11 housing programs, got two clients on housing wait lists along with countless other services and hours of support! With only 7 of us in the office during the week those are extremely impressive numbers and a huge impact to be making in the community! The number of thank yous and smiling clients I have seen leaving the office after working with each you really shows how all the hard work is making a difference." 

It has been a crazy week to say the least and I predict many more to come in the future, but taking the time to look back and reflect on what has been accomplished is often all you need to move forward. Service is definitely challenging work, but in the long run the rewards pay off in huge dividends! 

It's realizing you can't help everyone...

I work for a small non-profit (though I still think we have a big impact), thus we are constrained by the number of workstations we have to how many volunteers are there any given hour. Thus, we can at max see 5 clients an hour. But stuff comes up, volunteers are working on other projects, walk ins show up, clients come in early. Stuff gets crazy. Manning the front desk this week was particularly hard for that reason. We knew going into this week would be rough and it was. There were so many walk-ins who needed help now and could not go on unless they received it. "I'm sorry we just can't see you now. Can you make an appointment for late next week?" became words I came to despise.

I think one of the hardest realizations to make going into this whole service experience is that you really can't help everyone who walks through the door. The internal optimist in me wishes that wasn't the case, but the organization would overload and not go anywhere if we were always in client meetings - there is the other-side to the non-profit. And yes I cave (maybe more than I should) and stop what I am doing to help someone for 20 minutes or find a way to squeeze them in, it's hard not to do so. However, there was one client that came in looking for a walk in and it was too much to handle, we really couldn't see them. I had to leave the room to "see what I could do" and collect myself the whole situation pushed me over the edge a bit. But I had to face reality, we really could not see the client at that moment and I had to turn them away. All in all it was too much for me to handle at that moment and the reality of it still hasn't really sunk in.

Thankfully, Thursday I got to step out of the office environment and attend a community partnership day at Loyola. I was on my own for the first time and representing my organizations to all these other groups. I was nervous but it was a great learning experience (and chance to practice my LIFT pitch countless times!) and I connected to countless other community partners. Props for that much needed break!

Finding time to take a breath

I have to admit, finding time to take a breath has proved to be a difficult task to accomplish these last two weeks and this has caused a delay in me posting anything at all, something I promised myself would not happen when I started this. Getting ready for training institute, traveling to training for a week, having friends visit, visiting friends, moving, figuring out my job...I guess it all has kept me a lot busier than I realized and yet I feel refreshed, recharged and ready to go. So it was a good type of busy, the kind I intentionally create for myself to stay sane.

LIFT training institute was just what I needed in this AmeriCorp journey. The chance to connect with the other Site Coordinators and know that there are people out there going through the exact same journey, who are just as lost as me some days and willing to help each other out along the way. I was inspired as I watched my LIFT network grow and come to realize I can do this and I can make a difference, not matter how small it may be some days, weeks or months. I felt a renewed sense of responsibility from the national organization and overall think it is kind of awesome that I can be an innovative force in the fight against poverty. Hence, coming into this week, I feel a little bit better about everything, though I will admit still very overwhelmed.

That's a quick update for now. More to come later today/early tomorrow as I take a few moments to myself to breathe.