"We must use time wisely and forever realize that the time is always ripe to do right." -Nelson Mandela
Recently I spoke with Jeff Hilimire of Dragon Army about a project I was doing for one of my classes at UGA. He provided me with some awesome background and advice on gamification, application development, costs, and quite a bit of other real world stuff that may have gone over my head without the help of google. As a professional in that area, his advice is incredibly valuable. However, what’s more valuable than his advice is his time that he spent with me. Time is often an undervalued commodity. It is constantly spent, and only when it is gone do we realize how valuable it was to begin with.
By spending some of Jeff’s time, I was unfortunately keeping him from doing things in the community he believed to be important. As an opportunity to repay him for helping me and many others, he started a program called adviceforgood.org. The concept is simple: in exchange for an hour of advice from a professional, you do an hour of community service. The impact, however, can be radical.
I decided to help those that much of his time is spent helping: the homeless. According to the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty, approximately 1,750,000 individuals in the United States are homeless. Of these people, 28% do not get enough to eat every day. In Athens alone, the Northeast Georgia Homeless Coalition accounted for 249 individuals who were homeless. Of these, 87 people were unsheltered and 162 people were sheltered. Getting people in shelters is the first step towards making sure they are taken care of, but it requires a large effort from the community to make sure they are getting the supplies they need.
The Athens Area Homeless Shelter is one such shelter, which provides housing for about 20 mothers and their children who would otherwise be without a place to live. Three friends and I chose to spend our Sunday evening cooking dinner for the residents and getting to know them on a more personal level. Jeff introduced me to Dylan, another UGA student who he had given advice to, so I brought him along too. Pasta is a frequent meal for the residents since it’s cheap and easy to make in large quantities, so we decided to steer clear of that and provide them with a meal of chili, cornbread, and baked potatoes, with banana pudding for dessert.
Cooking for a large group of people is undoubtably challenging, but by dividing up the tasks we were able to make the workload easier and get the chance to talk to some of the residents when they came by. The kids, especially, were curious as to what we were doing, and then very excited when they realized we were making banana pudding for their dessert. I had the opportunity to connect with one of the moms when we realized that we both came from the same area a bit north of Atlanta. She used to work about 5 miles from the house I grew up in.
It’s humbling to realize how much someone’s life can change. My generation tends to think we are invincible and I think many of us lack the perspective to understand that a few decisions or twists of fate can alter the course of our lives. I would never have expected someone working in my hometown to end up homeless in Athens. I cannot even imagine the strength it takes to keep working and striving to provide for children when placed in that situation.
This internal strength is much like our time: undervalued until we realize how much we need it. However, like our time, it can also be shared more than we realize. By providing dinner to these families, hopefully we gave them a little more strength and resolve, a little more time where they don’t have to worry where the next meal will come from, and a little more hope for tomorrow.
