October 2023 Service Reflection: St. Agnes Soup Kitchen and Shelter for Women

 

    And just like that, the spookiest month of the year has come to an end! As the temperatures in New Orleans have (finally) begun to cool down, it seems as if things in the classroom have seriously started to heat up; nevertheless, this month has been a blessing to reflect on. 

     After our most intensive test to date, I decided to spend the following weekend recharging with my family at home. While there, I served with the Missionaries of Charity at the St. Agnes Soup Kitchen and Shelter for Women. To be frank, my decision to volunteer at a soup kitchen this month was sparked on a bit of a whim. Let's set the scene: it was around noon on a Friday, and after a long week of studying for, taking a test, recovery, and beginning a new module, I was tired, hungry, and ready to go home. Being that Tulane’s medical campuses are located downtown, students such as myself come in contact with people experiencing homelessness regularly: in short, we look at the homelessness epidemic directly in the eye every day. Being that Tulane’s medical campuses are located downtown, students such as myself come in contact with people experiencing homelessness regularly: in short, we look at the homelessness epidemic directly in the eye every day. I have made and carried care packages to hand out to those in need since college, and over the course of this semester, I have handed out quite a few. On this particular day, I waited for my green light to freedom (ie. waiting for the traffic light at Poydras to turn green so I could make my way home) and, almost subconsciously, rolled my window down while reaching into the box of care bags. To my horror, it was empty. Even worse, than the feeling of embarrassment and helplessness that rushed across my body as I told the person in need that I could not help them, I honestly could not remember the last time I’d refilled the box. As regrettable as it may sound (and felt), my handing out care packages on the side of the road had become a part of my routine, but not in positive the way that one might think. I had let the busyness of school over the past month blind me to the needs of my new community by carelessly handing out bags. Serving others is so much more than a five second interaction at a traffic light before scurrying off to avoid being honked at. I was on the way home to eat a hot meal cooked by someone who loves me. Surely, I could give a few hours of my time to serve a meal to someone in need. 

    The next morning, I made my way to the soup kitchen. The remarkable thing about St. Agnes is that the sisters never ask the public for donations, nor do they own personal phones or computers, because of their own personal vow of poverty. In solidarity with those they serve, they rely on the generosity of South Louisianians to donate the food, clothing, and personal items that will be served and given out at the kitchen and shelter. Sure enough, that Saturday morning, we prepared an entire meal using donations from the day before. How humbling it was serve others with food that the entire community had come together to provide. While cooking, cleaning, and preparing the dining hall for our lunch guests, my heart was reminded that generosity and love truly have a butterfly effect. Along with the--very real-- physical poverty that plagues our dear neighbors, there is also a spiritual poverty of loneliness and isolation that comes along with the circumstances of being homeless. Everyone, regardless of their lifepaths, seeks and needs community. Everyone present at St. Agnes, whether they noticed it or not, formed a small community of love. Sitting down and eating with other people is what makes humans unique from all other creatures! Being homeless is an incredibly dehumanizing experience, and it was, again, humbling to have the opportunity to serve, eat, converse with, and even learn from others that have endured much more than anyone ever should. In sharing a very human experience of having a warm meal, the Missionaries of Charity are able to ease the burden of both physical and emotional poverty, and I hope to share this heart posture with the homeless community you and I encounter in New Orleans and beyond. 

             Over the next four hours (8A-12P) I worked with the religious sisters of the 

      Missionaries of Charity, who run the soup kitchen and shelter.

 

 

    Regarding the"most intensive test to date" I mentioned earlier, October graced my classmates and I with the ANS/CV unit. In the end, it wasn't as much of a "horror story" as I thought it would be, but it definitely took a bit more time for the information to come together than other units. The most challenging part for me ended up being the most interesting. Being presented graphs of a patient's hemostats and figuring out which drugs were given according to their autonomic nervous system's response was almost like a puzzle to me. We were also tasked with interpreting ECGs, those of which looked like greek to me when I was an undergraduate volunteering in the Emergency Department. Overall, it was very interesting to learn about the cardiovascular system and how it is intricately innervated (and therefore affected by drugs that target) the autonomic nervous system. As we move forward with the CV Pharm module that will stretch into early November, it is so exciting to see how all of our units are truly piggybacking off of one another to form and even bigger puzzle of the human body. I can't wait to put all of the pieces together!