Academic Service-Learning Essay Contest
Winner
Course: Honors Theology
Professor: Dr. Sally Kenel
>
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Prof. Kathryn Shaughnessy
Hello and welcome to St. John’s University Libraries Podcast
Series. Today we present Academic Service Learning Essay Contest
winner Robert J. Ryan, a senior at St. John’s University’s Staten
Island campus. Mr. Ryan reads his Academic Service Learning essay
about working in a food party in Flatbush, Brooklyn. Thank you and
we hope you enjoy the podcast.
Robert J. Ryan
At 5:30 a.m., the alarm screamed harshly in my ear. Quickly,
I hit the snooze to get ten more minutes of sleep. By 6:00 a.m., I
was awake, dressed and in a semi-conscious state of
awareness. Awaking at this hour was unheard of for me, but
for those in homes all around Flatbush Avenue and Avenue P in
Brooklyn, NY, people were going about the same routine that I
was. However, these people were not waking up in wealthy
Staten Island homes, but rather in one-room apartments without
heat.
My experience of working at the food pantry opened my eyes as to
how the other half lives. I do not say that to be demeaning,
but in the United States, where economics is everything, there is
indeed a gap between the haves and the have-nots. This
problem is not going away; in fact, statistics show that the gap
between the classes is growing. In other words, the rich are
getting richer and the poor are getting poorer.
Something must be done to reverse this terrible trend in our
society. In my nine hours of work, I witnessed scenes that I
wish I could forget. Elderly men and women were dressed in
rags, waiting in 40-degree temperatures at eight in the morning,
just to get a few bags of rice, macaroni and beans. Many
people had with them small children whose cries echoed down the
dilapidated hallways of the food pantry. How could the
richest and most powerful nation the world has ever seen allow this
to go on? The United States spends billions of dollars in
Iraq, while our own nation cannot deal with an economic problem in
New York City — the financial mecca of the world.
There are those who will argue that the United States provides
opportunities for all people. It is up to the individual,
however, to seize that opportunity and improve his or her own
family’s lives. I admit I used to be one of those
people. Phrases like the following were part of my
vocabulary: “Why don’t they just get a job?” “People are just
lazy.” “I never needed any help from the government.”
While it might be true that some people are just not ambitious,
most of the indigent are poor through little fault of their
own. The needy are victims of unfortunate circumstances that
are further exacerbated by an unforgiving economic system.
Many of the women I spoke with had unexpected pregnancies which
forced them to halt their education. One may then pose the
question, “Who will hire an unwed mother with no formal
education?” Clearly, this is a difficult situation from which
most individuals will never recover.
The Catholic Church states that there should be “Economic
Justice for All,” and that it is the government’s responsibility to
see that all people are allowed to participate in the economic
community at some level. I believe that if the Federal
government acted on this recommendation, the abject poverty I
witnessed would lessen. To alarmists, these ideas would be
called communist; however, these concepts are merely a modified
form of capitalism. Those who scream communism most likely
would be those in power who do not wish to see change because it
might jeopardize their own great wealth and power. This was
the situation in 1950s Latin America, when corrupt governments used
the guise of communism to condemn those who were working to lift
the less fortunate out of dire poverty.
While the food pantry where I worked did help the poor, I was
saddened when I thought about the problem. These people went
home satisfied with a few bags of food, but in several days the
food would run out, and they would come back. I realized that
what I was doing was merely patching the problem, and not doing
much good in the long run.
If we want to truly help the poor, we must institute social
change. If that is not the case, people will never rise out of
their economic state; rather, they will sink deeper into
poverty. I feel a step forward would be to raise the public’s
awareness. For the most part, I have found that the middle-
and upper-classes know little about the poverty-stricken people who
live in their midst. I come from an upper-middle class family
and have never seen poverty-stricken areas up close like I did when
I worked at the food pantry.
Dorothy Day had the right idea with her publication, “The
Catholic Worker”; it informed and continues to inform people
about a problem they had little idea existed. Certainly, if
one is not aware of a problem it is difficult to do anything about
it. The upper-middle-class is growing in power and is in a
position to institute political change, so it must become better
informed about the problems in our society. In addition to
publishing a paper, Ms. Day also ran a food bank and a
shelter. These two services attacked the problem from two
different angles; that is, by providing long-term social change and
immediate aid simultaneously.
I arrived home around 6:00 p.m. while the last rays of light
were disappearing from the evening sky. I was physically
tired from being up at an hour I barely knew existed and from
lifting fifty-pound boxes of food. However, I believe I was
most fatigued by seeing a side of life that I had never seen
before, but thought only existed in third-world nations.
Looking back, I am grateful for my experience, for I consider it
an education in life — something that I will carry with me for the
remainder of my days. While I plan on going back in a few
weeks to help move the pantry to a new location, I pray that one
day I will be in a position of power to institute real change, and
I thank God for giving me the good life I have had so
far.
Prof. Kathryn Shaughnessy
That concludes this podcast. Bumper music is “If Your Singing By
Yourself” by Uma Floresta courtesy of Podsafe Audio. We thank
Robert J. Ryan and the Office of Academic Service Learning for
sharing their time, experience and talent for the great
community.