Take Action Project- Final Reflection

            The beginning of my Take Action project was unfortunately very stressful; I had originally planned on volunteering at the YWCA, but the volunteer coordinator would not respond to my emails after I had my interview and turned in my background check. Thankfully, I was able to get ahold of Carriage Town Ministries, an organization that I’m familiar with and have volunteered at in the past. They were extremely nice and accommodating, and I’m so glad I got the chance to work with them again.

I was put in contact with Sharron Thompson, the person in charge of donations and running Carriage Town’s clothing store. My volunteering took place in the donation center and for four hours I sorted, hung, and organized the children’s clothing in the back of the store. I was fortunate enough to be doing my service hours while the store was open to the public, and even though I was in the backroom I still got a great sense of how empowering it was for people in need to visit the store and pick out clothing items that they needed. Everything in the store is free, and word of mouth has spread the knowledge of Carriage Town’s store throughout Flint. The store has clothes for men, women, and children. Each person has 20 minutes to shop; women are allowed to select up to 40 pieces of clothing (more if they have children) and men are allowed 20 pieces. Each person’s name is put on a list, and they are allowed to come to the store every 30 days to shop for whatever they might need. When I asked Ms. Thompson how the store came to be, she told me that as word spread that Carriage Town gives clothing for free, donations began to pour in and the need to get the clothing to the public necessitated a larger space and setting up a system for giving. In my interview, we discussed how empowering it can be for people that have nothing but the clothes on their backs to come in and select items that they want and put their own outfits together. I also got to witness this sense of empowerment firsthand; while I was putting clothes out in the store a woman came in with her teenage daughter, I overheard the woman tell her daughter, “Go ahead honey, anything you like you go ahead and get it.” The pride and happiness in her voice was incredible, I could just feel how amazing it made this woman feel to tell her daughter that, and it honestly brought tears to my eyes. For the next few hours I continued to see and hear people come into the store; the mood was one of joy and thankfulness, and my time volunteering went by extremely fast.

After volunteering I sat down with Ms. Thompson to ask her some questions about Carriage Town, the store, and her own experiences. When I asked Ms. Thompson how she came to work at Carriage Town, she told me that she always knew she wanted to work there because she loves helping people. It took some time, and a lot of phone calls, but eventually she got a call for an interview and has been working at Carriage Town ever since. I asked her what she felt was Carriage Town’s greatest service to women in the community, and she responded right away with giving women hope and shelter. Women who come to Carriage Town seeking shelter are given the option of staying for 30 days or signing up for a Personal Success Plan (PSP) that is completed over a two year period. For the women who choose a PSP, Carriage Town provides classes on everything from how to make a bed to parenting classes, they help women find jobs, secure permanent housing, attain GED’s, go through drug rehabilitation, and get medical attention if necessary. As the women complete their PSP program, they are given the opportunity to move to Liberty House after about a year so long as they are following Carriage Town’s rules and have a job. At Liberty House, the women are given more freedom including a later curfew, cooking their own meals, doing laundry, and basically coming and going as they please. The program has been very successful and helped many women, and Ms. Thompson shared the story of Marilyn with me, a woman who just recently completed her PSP. Marilyn came to Carriage Town strung out and homeless, with no family or friends left to turn to. At the end of her two year stay, Marilyn had completed a GED, remained sober for two years, and received a full time position working at Carriage Town. She is just one of many women that Carriage Town has helped, and there are currently 36 women and 17 children staying at Carriage Town and Liberty House who are seeking the completion of their PSP’s.
As I think about ways that I can extend this project, my mind goes in so many directions. First, simply continuing to volunteer would be a great way to continue helping Carriage Town with its many endeavors. What I would really love to see is a class-wide volunteer effort at Carriage Town, there are so many things they could use help with, from yard work to sorting donations, and I believe that having the class go together to help them would be extremely beneficial. I asked Ms. Thompson if she felt having an entire class go to volunteer would be helpful to Carriage Town, and she said it absolutely would. It is my hope that I can someday extend this project by having a large group volunteer with Carriage Town.

Although my project may have started out stressful, I am extremely happy that I had the opportunity to work with Carriage Town, and will do it again gladly in the future. This organization is full of kind, caring people who go out of their way to help people in need. From the store to the PSP program to Liberty House, Carriage Town is an amazing example of an organization in the Flint community that is helping women, and I am thankful that, for a little while, I got to be a part of it.