Day Thirteen

The students are journaling as part of our Final Day Retreat. This gives me a chance to post the final blog entry, written last evening as we finished working and began our retreat.

June 29, 2007
Today is our final day of immersion. We all have mixed feelings about the experience coming to an end. We miss our cell phones, computers, snacks, and TVs, but we had such a blast working with St. Anthony’s that we will never forget these two weeks. This morning at St. Anthony’s we sat in a circle and reflected about why we wanted to do immersion. We did the same thing on our first day, and we wanted to compare the differences in our answer from two weeks ago, to today. For the most part we origionally wanted to do immersion to have a new experience and to help others. Now that we have completed it, we realize that our immersion experience was great because we got to understand all the people we met and not just serve them, but be with them. We also wrote letters to ourselves about this experience which St. Anthony’s will send to us in 6 months. After our morning work: half to Salvation Army and half to the Clothing Store, we had our last lunch at St. Anthony’s. In the afternoon we sat in a circle on a blanket with candels in the middle. We each lit a candle for someone we met in the past two weeks and said something they have taught us or something we remember about them. After this activity we all stayed there because Mary Anne Finch, the founder and directore of Care Through Touch, offered to give us each a back massage. It was AMAZING!! Then we all came back to our room because we are ordering dinner for tonight. It is a surprise and it will be here in about 15 minutes and we are all starving!
Katie Nolan

Day Twelve

Today was a pretty intense day. We took Muni down to our regular 6th Street stop and met Colleen at the door of St. Anthony’s. We began the day by talking about different definitions of servics and what it can mean to different people. We ranked different forms of service from the most important to the least significant in our eyes. It was interesting to see the other reactions and decisions of the other people in the group as to where they ranked certain things on their lists. Then we went down to the dining room to begin preparing for the early lunch guests. This was the first time since we arrived that we were all working in the same location. Working the dining room is a favorite of many in our group as it is the duty with the most interaction with the clients at St. Anthony’s. Throughout the day we rotated between serving and cleaning and bussing. Lunch today was pasta and marinara sauce with cucumber salad, bread, fruit, and dessert. It was very good and we all cleaned our plates. After lunch was over we met back up with Colleen and talked about our experience so far with the Immersion program and with St. Anthony’s as a whole. We talked more about service and ways we can make an impression on others to make a difference in the community. We all decided to buy St. Anthony’s shirts and use $15 of our $20 spending money. We said goodbye to Colleen and Marie who we would not see again and headed out. Team Blue, or Mr. Shaughnessy, Cristina, Audrey, Sumner and I headed to the grocery store while the others went back to St. Agnes. While we were in the store, I turned around to see none other than my brother and his friend buying some last minute food for their trip up to Lake Tahoe later today! It was a nice surprise. We spoke for a couple of minutes and I learned that he would be on vacation instead of eagerly awaiting my return from Immersion. We finished up shopping and decided on two whole chickens, red beans and rice, cornbread, and grapes for our final cooking meal. It should be pretty tasty. It sure does smell good now! I can’t believe we only have one and a half more days left! It seems like we only started yesterday! See you soon!

Alessandra Zanassi☺☺☺☺☺☺☺☺☺☺☺☺☺☺☺☺☺☺☺☺☺☺☺☺☺☺☺☺☺☺☺☺☺

Day Eleven

Today was a little difficult waking up as some of us our starting to feel the effects of sleeping on the floor. Some ate breakfast while others got a few extra precious minutes of sleep. We arrived at St. Anthony’s right on time and were greeted by Colleen. We played the power chair game where we lined up chairs in ways so one chair had all the power. This game showed us that power can be interpreted in different ways depending on the situation. Katie, Bianca, Sumner, Alessandra, and Shag went to Salvation Army to do Meals that Heal while Rian, Audrey, Jordan, Theresa, and I went to St. Anthony’s clothing store where we hung up clothes that people could then pick through and chose an outfit. We then went back to St. Anthony’s for lunch and put ourselves in line. Today was a great day in terms of St. Anthony’s lunch as it said chef special on the calendar and we were all a little skeptical, but it turned out to be a great mushroom, spinach, and quiche with rice and cole slaw. I met an interesting man at lunch today as he works for a private company that sets up special equipment for private concerts and events. He also turned out to be a huge San Francisco Giants and San Jose Sharks fan that was great for me as I am also a huge fan and was able to have a great conversation about what we thought the future had in store for our favorite teams. We then had an amazing afternoon experience as we had the opportunity to hear Indian Joe’s story, a homeless man who comes to St. Anthony’s and has made connections with students on San Francisco Immersion. His story was very powerful as he told us he came from an Indian reservation in Adam’s Lake, British Columbia and was abused as a child and ended up being adopted by a white couple that treated him well. He has lived in San Francisco for 25 years and did end up with an addiction to heroine, speed, cocaine, and alcohol, as there is such an easy access to these substances that it is hard to stay away. He got sober not by a drug and alcohol rehabilitation program, but by saying no thank you and not associating with people who have drug or alcohol problems as the temptation to fall back he said would be too great. Indian Joe talked about in a way chooses to be homeless as the shelters and single room occupancy’s are filled with drugs and he ended up contacting TB when he stayed at a shelter. He has a deal with a private parking lot where they let him sleep in a safe environment and pay him to clean up the parking lot. Indian Joe demonstrated that government programs rarely work and that the city needs to pay attention to the problems of its citizens instead of its potholes. Team Red went to farmer’s market to get ingredients for their meal while Team Blue went back to St. Agnes to take a nap. Team Red made a delicious stir-fry with cake chocolate chip cookies, cantaloupe, and cookies n cream ice cream for dessert. We are now waiting for Theresa’s roommate to get here for reflection, and we hope to play a rematch game of Charades tonight or tomorrow.
Cristina Fowler

Day Ten

Hi everyone, this is Theresa Vela. We have just about completed our tenth day of immersion. We are currently sitting in the Spiritual Life Center, cooking team Red is cleaning up from dinner while team Blue, who prepared dinner, is journaling about the day. Reflecting on the day leaves me feeling full, and tired. Everyday I feel as though 7.30am comes faster and faster, almost as though 7.30 has made a deal with 7 and is in fact coming first. I realize is completely ridiculous, but knowing that it doesn’t make getting up any easier. Easy or hard, get up me must and reluctantly we do. And while we made it to the bus stop in time to make the “early” No. 6 we did so in a very tired manner.

When we arrived at St. Anthony’s Angie gave us a talk on Addictive Illnesses as a follow-up to RJ’s talk yesterday afternoon. After the talk half of us went to the Salvation Army to deliver meals to the homebound and the other half went to work in the Dinning Room. It was a busy day in the dinning room. The closer to the end of the month it gets the more people are in need of a meal. Yet, even though the dinning room seems crowded and chaotic, it is stilled filled with an atmosphere of equal dignity and respect for others.

Our afternoon plans changed at the last minute because our planned speaker couldn’t make it, so rather than learning about Hunger in SF we heard from Joe, another participant in the Fr. Alfred Center’s recovery program. After Joe’s talk we returned to St. Agnes for an afternoon nap.

Once refreshed we, minus Shag who is having some back trouble because of the hard floors we are sleeping on, went out to the Panhandle to play capture the flag. The winner of this game was never truly resolved since both teams were convinced the other team had unfairly hidden its flag.

Team Blue made Sloppy Joe’s (they made me a Sloppy Tofu), corn, garlic bread, and strawberries. During dinner we had yet another fantastic conversation, which like most of our conversations fluidly bounced from topic to topic. The dinner conversation is usually, in my opinion, one of the high points of the day.

The students are now done cleaning and journaling. They are patiently, yet loudly, waiting for me to finishing writing so we can have dessert. We have the Zanassi family to thank for our much-anticipated dessert of S’mores! I can only ask them play so many hands of cards before they will lose patience with me, so I will say goodnight.

I hope this finds you all well and in good spirits! Have a wonderful night. We are looking forward to seeing you on Saturday!

Peace,
Theresa Vela

Day Nine

It is Tuesday morning and Theresa is supervising morning getting ready while I came over to the Spiritual Life Center to post a quick update. Yesterday was a quiet day, everybody was recovering from spending so many hour out in the sun on Sunday. No one was interested in writing a blog entry.

The focus of yesterday was Seniors in the Tenderloing. Marie O'Connor was our Saint Anthony Foundation host and she reminded us that we were all Seniors in Training. She led us in some reflections and gave us information about senior citizens in the United States and in the Tenderloin. For work, half went to Presentation Housing for Adult Day Health Care while the other half went to Saint Anthony's Madonna Housing for Adult Day Health Care and Senior Homeless Drop-in at Saint Anthony's Living Room. We returned for lunch in the Dining Room and after lunch we joined with a group of teenagers from the Houston area in San Francisco for a mission experience. We heard from JR, one of the young men in the Father Alfred Recovery Program. We finished our work day with Marie leading us in a reflection about how we encountered and beheld seniors in our lives and the seniors with whom we interacted during the morning.

We headed back to Saint Agnes for naps (much needed), cooking, cleaning, journaling, group reflection. We enjoyed a gread dinner of breakfast foods and some reading and relaxing time and then to bed.

Hopefully one of the students will have the energy to compose a blog today for posting tomorrow.

Michael Shaughnessy (aka shag)

Day Eight

Sorry we are so late again. We didn't have access to computer or internet at all yesterday, Sunday, so we are not posting;

Sunday morning, we all went to service at Glide. Although it wasn’t the Catholic mass most people were used to, we all thoroughly enjoyed it. The choir sang beautifully and vivaciously! Also, in honor of Pride day, they had a nice slideshow, displaying different ways of expressing gay pride.
After service, we were able to march in the Gay Pride Parade with Glide, walking behind the truck carrying the choir. We all held different signs, like “Justice For All,” “God Loves You,” “Glide is Love,” “Shine Your Light,” etc… it was a lot of fun, being able to march down Market street holding our signs for thousands of people to see.
After the excitement of the parade, we made our way over to the Pride festival, where we ended up taking donations for almost 3 hours!! Our collecting started slowing down, as people would blatantly ignore us as they walked past. We got back to St. Agnes around 6 completely exhausted!

- Audrey

Day Seven

Today we had the chance to sleep in until 10, which we took full advantage of. We then got ready to go to the laundromat and Shag was nice enough to take our clothes down in his car so we did not have to carry them all the way there. Going to the laundromat was an interesting experience as we played cards and read while we were waiting for our clothes to wash and dry. When we got back from the laundromat, we played an interesting game of charades, and we hope to play another game later tonight. Team Cold then made linner as Team Hot went to get stuff to make sandwiches for the Pride Parade tomorrow. We had a delicious meal of home fries, scrambled eggs, and toast. We then had a longer reflection where we discussed how we were doing on the four tenets of immersion: simple living, community, social justice, and spirituality. We decided as a group that we were living too easily and to cut back on some of the luxuries we have had this first week. For the next week none of us will eat snacks, some of us will shower every 3 days, and some will wear only 4 shirts in this next week. We are now journaling and will maybe watch a video later tonight. We are excited to see you all next Saturday for the potluck, and parents our invited to come to mass at 4:00.
Cristina Fowler
P.S. Mr. Dineen, we were able to give up snacks next week because all the chocolate crinkles were gone, and we hope to see them next Saturday.