Guests gather in the Rebuild Center patio.
Too old for summer camp and too young for a job, I began volunteering at the Rebuild Center when I was fifteen. I felt good about what I was doing. Felt important. The work was simple, and there was no obligation to go. Most often I would call out names from either the list for the showers or the list for the phones. It would get hectic at times, but usually things were relaxed. Guests would often come up to me during the lulls just to talk, but I had a hard time opening up. I could not handle the pressure of talking to a stranger, especially a homeless one. I was perfectly content with sticking to my lists to avoid conversation. To avoid human contact – just as I would have had I seen one of the guests looking for a buck on the street.
The next summer I went back for more. The sense of social justice my parents instilled in me overcame my typical sixteen-year-old awkwardness. I had spent enough time at the Center to overcome my initial discomfort. The calm of the Center had worked on me as well. I began to connect with the guests. These conversations became what I looked forward to the most. I would not just hand the guests the soap or the razor they had asked for. We would talk. Through these conversations I made connections and friendships. I learned where my friends slept, whether it was under the highway, in a homeless shelter, or on the floor of an apartment recently obtained.
Last summer I went back to my home, the Rebuild Center. I had to go. I had other obligations; I ran in the mornings and earned money at an ice cream shop in the evenings, but this was my summer job. This was where I belonged. Between the lists and my conversations with the guests, I had one over-arching job at the Center. I have a calling. My job is to know their names.
