Author: Ariel Aguiar

So today we went to the Inglis House, which is a non-traditional nursing home as Sarah the activities coordinator explained it. The residents have various, crippling diseases that make them live their lives in wheelchairs.  The house provides dorm-style rooms for them, equipped with TVs, desks, beds, and walls decorated with cards and photos from their families. The average age range of a resident at the Inglis House is 45-55. Volunteers are taken to the TR (therapy recreation) room to play scrabble, watch movies, paint, or play shuffleboard with the residents. It was an experience I have never witnessed before with people I’ve never encountered before, but I enjoyed it greatly.

The most intriguing part of our first day for me, however, was when we came back from our work sites and watched an old 20/20 video from about 2005. The first part showed children and teenagers walking around Moorestown, New Jersey, where I went to high school and where I still spend afternoons walking around Main Street. I got excited when they showed one of my favorite pizza places and the street right in front of my school. Then, suddenly, they cut to children and teenagers walking around the streets of Camden, New Jersey, only 10 minutes away. In 2004 Moorestown was voted the best place to live in America and Camden was voted the most dangerous place to live. What a shock to see kids dodging drug corners and needles in the bushes with graffiti covering the walls while I was happily attending my sophomore year in high school. The rest of the episode discussed the contrast between children in Camden and in Moorestown. They interviewed kids and teens who both had the same goals and hopes in life, but the Camden children have to work 10 times harder to achieve these things due to their surroundings. They have to overcome the influences of drugs, alcohol, starvation, homelessness, and so much more. After the episode was over, Pastor John asked us to talk about our initial reactions. I told him I was from the Moorestown area and he asked me if I felt guilty after seeing the show, explaining that wasn’t the point. I said no, but that I felt weird and sad and a little uncomfortable with the fact that so close to my home and my friends and my family are people struggling to support themselves on a day-to-day basis. I realized how much I take for granted every day and am so thankful for all that I have. I talked with my mom for a while tonight about why Camden is now so poverty-stricken and how we can help or how they can help themselves, but we didn’t come to any realistic conclusions.

Today, Annie and I drove to the VOA (Volunteers of America) in Camden along with three students from Niagra University. VOA is comprised of a few buildings. One building acts as a drop by area for families to do laundry, receive meals and have a warm place to spend time. Another building features many small rooms which homeless single moms can stay in for months at a time to have shelter.

When we first arrived at the site, they told us they weren’t expecting us and that they didn’t know what they had for us to do. We immediately offered to clean or shovel or do anything to help them out. They laughed and said that they could call over some families with children and that we could spend time with the kids in one of the playrooms.

About eight kids were dropped off by different families and spent time with us in the small room stuffed with games, books and stuffed animals. The youngest of the children were 16 month old twin girls with the oldest child being 6. The children were lively and engaged with us the entire time we were there. We mostly played board games and read books with the kids, which turned out to be very rewarding because the kids learned things that they hadn’t known beforehand like how to play a new game or how to spell a new word. I was happy to provide one on one interaction with these children that probably don’t get much attention and nurturing because of their stressful lifestyles of having so little. It was also great to have the moms thank us for spending time with their kids because they had needed the time to get things done like laundry.

-Sarah Swienckowski- Eckhart