Breakfast at the Men's Shelter

Written by: Kate Snyder, Executive Assistant

Let’s face it -- college kids often get a bad rap, especially when it comes to their “hours of operation.” We often assume that those wild youngsters are up partying until the wee hours of the morning and never roll out of bed before noon on the weekends. And for some that is indisputably true. But I try not paint the whole species with the same brush. And here’s why.

Last week, half a dozen students from Carnegie Mellon University showed up at out Men’s Emergency Shelter at 6 AM to serve breakfast to the men there...on a Saturday. Dinner at the shelter is always handled by groups of volunteers, but breakfast is usually more along the lines of cereal and fruit. It’s much easier to find groups willing to arrive with food at 7pm than 7am! But every now and again, a dedicated group of people makes that extra effort to provide a special hot breakfast for our homeless clients.

Like the members of Lamda Sigma, a Sophomore honor society at CMU dedicated to service. The group on Saturday was led by Carolina Velez, the bubbly and energetic president of the organization. Carolina’s ties to EECM go back a number of years to when she was a high school student at the Ellis School. The school promotes civic service by cooking and providing dinner at the Men’s Shelter every month and Carolina was usually among the group that came.

When she arrived at college and got involved with Lambda Sigma, she remembered the positive experience she had with EECM and encouraged the members to choose serving the men at the shelter for a service project. The group made vats of pancake batter, which they cooked on cookie sheets on the stove, scrambled eggs, and sausage. They also handed out apples and granola treats for the men to take with them and eat during the day. It was a feast.

So how did our community-minded college students enjoy their morning at the shelter? Carolina reports that “some of the people we went with were a bit freaked out at first because of the hard reality that is a men’s shelter, but once they realized how nice everyone was....they got over it. And now whenever I talk about it, everyone cannot stop gushing about what a wonderful time they had and how much they want to go back!”

We’ll be happy to have them.