Volunteering with homeless people?

[MidwestLovin]

I was excited to work with homeless people, but I found out the position is mostly front desk work. Interaction with homeless people, but not as much as meal serving would be. Unfortunately, if you want to serve a meal, you need to get a large group together and purchase it. I do plan on doing this, but not very frequently. Should I find another shelter? This one was very flexible with when you volunteer which is great because I can't really add another once-a-week volunteer gig to my schedule.

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[Shazam243]

Is this a shelter or a soup kitchen?

 

[AlteredScale]

I was excited to work with homeless people, but I found out the position is mostly front desk work. Interaction with homeless people, but not as much as meal serving would be. Unfortunately, if you want to serve a meal, you need to get a large group together and purchase it. I do plan on doing this, but not very frequently. Should I find another shelter? This one was very flexible with when you volunteer which is great because I can't really add another once-a-week volunteer gig to my schedule.

Just do this and don't jump around. It's better to commit to one group that fits with you schedule. You're doing them a service by working front desk and you are at the end of day helping those we are under served! Major props for doing this by the way 🙂

 

[Gauss44]

Let me see if I understand... You want to "interact with homeless people" in a way that will fill an EC spot on your medical school application? In that case, you can Google homeless shelters in your area or look them up on www.yelp.com and call them up or check their websites. Alternatively, if you ONLY wanted to help the homeless by serving them food, you could go to McDonalds and pick up a meal next time you see a homeless person asking for food. Or, to interact with a homeless person, just be receptive to their conversations. Say something nice.

If the EC box still needs to be checked and "homeless people" jobs aren't available, try googling other disadvantaged groups that interest you. Or check here: http://www.volunteermatch.org/

Personally, I'm not sure "front desk work" is all that bad. Working at a front desk, you WILL end up making small talk and getting to know homeless people. Sometimes individuals will stick around and talk with you. You can learn a lot that way!

 

[nemo123]

So what is your concern exactly? That you wanted to serve food instead of working at the front desk or that you're afraid med schools won't take your volunteering position seriously because you worked at the front desk? I'm getting that feeling that it's kind of both. If you really want to just hand out food, then you should probably try to find another shelter.

That being said, you'll learn lots of things and do a lot of things for the homeless even if you work at the front desk, and med schools won't care whether you handed out food or worked at the front desk. What you go out of the experience is more important. Homeless shelters aren't just about giving out food... They're also about giving moral support, helping them find jobs, helping them solve any legal issues, etc. Depending on how big the homeless shelter is, you can also think of projects that you could implement at the shelter to help out the people there (ie clothes donations, food donations, helping them make resumes, etc).

 

[Planes2Doc]

If you're primarily doing this to check the box on your application, then continue with this gig since flexibility is extremely important. If you're worried about being taken seriously as @nemo123 mentioned, then you'll need to embellish the position (like a majority of pre-meds do), or mention the important things that get done at the front desk. Remember, your typical hospital ED volunteer will be doing scut work 90% of the time, and that's not what they mention to ADCOMs. And look on the bright side, you're working for an organization that actually provides FREE services to the poor. This isn't like providing free labor to a non-profit hospital which still charges everyone (they are legally obligated to provide free services in the ED) whenever possible, so you're ultimately lining the pockets of the board of directors.

Now if you are passionate about helping the homeless and feel like you're not doing enough, then do what everyone mentioned and find a new position. There's obviously a reason why you started this thread on SDN. Something is bothering you.

But remember to keep your eyes on the prize, medical school. A flexible gig which allows you to have the highest stats possible trumps something which may be more "meaningful," which might cause your grades or other ECs to suffer due to a greater time commitment or something that doesn't provide all too much flexibility.