The Art of Service: IHS

I just got back from IHS, Institute of Human Services, a homeless shelter where I served dinner. My church participates in serving dinners to IHS every other month on the first Wednesday and my family coordinates it with the church. So every two months we buy a lot of pasta, carrots and lettuce for salad, corn, and jello to prepare at the IHS kitchen of the Wednesday we serve. I of course am unable to go to help prepare cooking the food, but I get to go after school to help. After over three or four years of doing this, I have become a regular volunteer at the IHS. I realized that IHS is not just a homeless shelter, a place where the homeless people sleep and feed, but also a learning place for the homeless people to get back to a normal life.
Every time we begin serving dinner, the IHS volunteers are allowed to eat first then the rest of the crowd. These IHS volunteers are just regular homeless people who are trying to get a new start on life. These people help serve, clean, etc. It's a way for them to get back into society. Everyone is required to help clean up if they are staying over for the night, and those who are not just get a free meal and leave. In a way, IHS is helping these people a lot if the people use and take advantage of what the homeless shelter is offering. Some people are regulars at IHS, they receive money from the government at the beginning of the month and spend it all on drugs and alcohol. So later in the month IHS becomes crowded with people not having enough money to survive on for themselves. This is usually the case for the homeless people. They're stuck in a cycle that repeats itself indefinitely. I feel that if these homeless people really wanted to get out of homelessness they need put in the effort of getting out of that cycle.