I was walking out of the Pioneer Hall Homeless Shelter this morning with Don Dolan, another volunteer overnight host, and he asked me, "Why do you do this, Sharon?"  He tells me that the reason he does it is "It needs to be done and I can do it."   My reason is to walk a mile in their shoes. It puts me closer to understanding the struggles of being homeless because this is something I believe we cannot understand without experiencing. As John Steinbeck wrote, "It means very little to know that a million Chinese are starving unless you know one Chinese who is starving."

On a deeper level, the reason I volunteer at the shelter is because I actually enjoy it. I can explain this joy through the triad of sympathy, empathy and compassion I found in Dr. Neel Burton's May, 2015 article in Psychology Today.  Sympathy or 'fellow feeling' is defined as care or concern for others with a desire to see them better off.  Hopefully we can all sympathize with the homeless residents of Ashland.

Empathy or 'feeling into' can be defined as recognizing and sharing the emotions of another person.  Can we imagine what a homeless person must go through each day?  Or more importantly, can we take the time to imagine ourselves as homeless?  What would it feel like to suffer from mental illness, PTSD, alcohol or drug addiction or to be the victim of physical or sexual abuse?  What if you had no family or friends who could help you and you had nowhere to sleep, bathe or store your belongings?  Can we make the leap to compassion or 'suffering with'?  Like empathy, compassion also involves sharing emotions but also implies a need to alleviate the suffering.  It is active, not passive.

The joy I get from volunteering at the shelter is from not only helping, but being a part of a community of people who have nothing, whose lives are so raw and at the edge of existence. These are people with names and stories and they are my friends and your neighbors in need. And if we do not help them, if we do not sympathize, empathize and have compassion; who will? 

Could you walk a mile in their shoes for a chance at joy?  Not that I'm competitive or want to play the guilt card, but here are the statistics:

There are 22 weeks of winter shelter each year.  TES and the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship sponsor Pioneer Hall every Tuesday and Thursday and we can't open the shelter unless we have 2 volunteers each night. In the 10 weeks since we opened this season, TES volunteers have filled only 9 of the 40 spots with only 2 individuals (This does not include the very much appreciated TES food ninjas, who provide breakfast every Wednesday and Friday. Thank you, food ninja's! Or the UU's Mitzi who does the hot beverage service single-handedly every Tuesday/Thursday night and Wednesday/Friday morning. Thank you, Mitzi.) So the UUs are ahead, but it's not too late to step up our game. 

Even if you can't spend the night, we could still use your help setting up for a few hours or so in the evening and/or helping clean up the next morning. Helping out in the evening or morning is a great way to see what the shelter is about and it really helps the overnight volunteers.  If you would like to volunteer, please call me, Sharon Harris, at 208-215-1422. I'd love to introduce you to this wonderful opportunity.  It needs to be done and we can do it.