From The Intern Desk…
March 12th, 2010by Intern Desk
Ed. Note: This week’s entry was written by Florence, who has been working with us since September 2009. Florence is a student at Berkeley and spends much of her time and talents finding ways to support St. Anthony programs and clients. Below is just a sampling of her experiences thus far:
@ the Social Work Center:
Registering clients for food stamps can get depressing, especially when they really need the extra help but are not qualified because they earn “too much.” Here’s a dilemma I came across recently: a client gets a monthly benefit of $925 in SSI but has to pay a $900 monthly rent. She is left with $25 for all her other expenses. She doesn’t have enough to cover even her basic needs but is ineligible for food stamps because she is on SSI.
@ the Clothing Program:
During the past holiday season, I had the privilege of organizing clothing drives at the University of San Francisco and the Shinnyo-en Buddhist Head Temple in Redwood City. A USF student and I scattered donation bins all around campus and the temple in November as we also educated others about the acute plight of the homeless during the winter months. Between USF and Shinnyo-en, we collected more than 30 large bags of clothes and shoes in just a few weeks! To learn about how to organize your own Clothing Drive for St. Anthony foundation, click here!
@ the Intern Room:
“Go home, Florence,” or some rendition of that, chimes every Friday at 5pm. “Five more minutes” is my practiced reply, but there is no doubt I’d rather stay the whole night. There are simply too many temptations in this room. Shelves of books, books, heavenly books! Topics range from poverty to spirituality to business, making sure interns do not, and can not, cry from boredom. Even the intern desk is stacked to the nines with books like San Francisco Tenderloin, Street Sheet, Voices From the Heart, and Social Welfare at a Crossroads, two of which I checked out to read without time constraint…(and yes! interns can check books out, too!). But books are not all the intern room has to offer. There are also binders full of studies and research on homelessness, policies, mental health and the like!
What more can I say, I love this place!
January 2nd, 2011 at 9:47 pm
You are soooo talented in writing. God is really using you in tremendous methods. You’re doing a great job! This was a wonderful blog!