Sermon by AJ Colianni, Sunday, Nov 7th, 2010
When I was asked to stand up and speak about the Shelf of Hope today, and my students’ involvement in it, I joked to the Shelf team that I didn’t feel that I was qualified, and that public speaking made me feel a bit itchy. In truth, I speak publicly quite often at Breck, and I actually just returned from a conference in which I gave my first presentation to a group of complete strangers.
I guess what caused me anxiety was the feeling that something like “ending hunger” seems like something that I just can’t do. How can I stand up here and make the case that we are making a difference at our little food shelf? It’s too big! There are too many variables, too many problems, too many things outside of our control, and besides, I have a job. You have a job! We have things to do!
Whew!
I settled my mind a bit. I slept on it. I thought about my students, and the people that we serve. I knew what I wanted to say.
But, first, a little background. At Breck, all upper school students participate in weekly service learning. Each advisory group spends about an hour on Wednesday morning volunteering across the city at various institutions: working with young kids, senior citizens, people with mental or physical disabilities to name a few. In the years before the creation of the Shelf of Hope, I worked with people at opportunity partners, an institution that helps people with mental disabilities learn job and life skills, and also at Jones-Harrison, working with seniors who had memory loss.
These were all great experiences for me and my students in those years, but I felt like I wanted to do something a bit different.
It was about this time I was having these thoughts that Roger had spoken with Aron about a food shelf, I had a couple conversations with Aron, and I know that others were thinking about this problem of hunger and what Gethsemane might be able to do about it.
In my recollection, (and Sonja says I don’t always remember the details of these things) just a few weeks after the initial conversations with Aron, I told our service coordinator at Breck that I had a new location.
This idea for a service site was definitely out of the norm for Breck. Let me quote for you, an email I sent to Aron before we came for our first wednesday, back in 2008.
“I think a conversation ... about the work in the neighborhood would be excellent, and will give the kids a better idea of what "downtown" is like... I think a lot of them (and their parents, perhaps) don't have a solid idea.”
I continued on....
“We had the "Back to School" night last Thursday where I meet the parents of my Advisees. They were a little... apprehensive... about the site... I don't think that I did the most eloquent job of explaining it, but no worries. I'm really looking forward to it and feel that we'll get a good sense of where we're going here shortly.”
We really had no idea how this was going to all work, but we had a feeling, and that’s enough to get change started.
At the conference I attended this week in Chicago, I heard a presentation from an author by the name of Dan Heath. He wrote a book called “Switch: How to change things when change is hard.”
He argues that to make change, you have to appeal to both the rational and the emotional, otherwise, change won’t happen. Changing our mission to food is a big change.
Rationally speaking, I know we are making a difference. I see, along with the other volunteers, the clients coming each week. I read the numbers about how many thousands of pounds of food we are distributing. I hear people passing by the garden, literally singing (Zara can attest to this) singing our praises for doing what we are doing in the city.
But we’re also making a difference emotionally. I want to speak a bit about some of my students, since that’s who I know best in this equation.
Early on, in September, a student from my original advisory at Gethsemane two years ago came running up to me. Abby is her name.
“Mr. Colianni! Mr. Colianni I have a great idea about the food shelf! We’re going to collect food for homecoming and donate it to the food shelf! Are you still doing it? I think we can get a lot of food this year!”
She hadn’t been here for 2 years, but apparently it was on her mind.
Awesome! I said.
As it turned out, we collected so much food that we needed to reserve a larger bus for the ride over from school.
I’ve asked the kids to write entries on the shelf of hope website, here’s one of them.
“We start our day walking through the doors of Gethsemane church with a warm welcome from the many people waiting in the lobby. It's always amazing how happy they are, even though it's about 40 degrees and raining out today, and they might not have anywhere to go. After going into the back room, where they keep the food, we get to work. There are always lots of things to do including bagging up the fresh bread that is delivered each week, helping Doug pick out food for each individual person, picking food from the food shelf's garden, or organizing food on the shelves. Overall, we always have a fun time, and knowing that we're a part of feeding the hungry each wednesday, makes us leave feeling good.”
That was by Amanda.
Here’s another, from Luke.
“As I walk into the room, which emits a strong smell of Panera bread, I notice that there were many tasks that need to be completed. There's three full boxes of Panera goodness, a bag of tuna, and of course the garden. I decided to take the job of writing, cause it seemed fun. Maybe the internet will help get the word out about the Shelf of Hope. Well, I guess I'm not going to get anything done typing all day, so... I'm going to go serve now.”
Here’s another one, last year from Malayha:
“Today, our service group went outside with around twenty bagged lunches, it was a little chilly outside and really cloudy so we all had to dress warm. We went around downtown near Super Target and the IDS building. There were a few people around in Target and a few people sitting around in the IDS building. The people i went to really appreciated it and we all put smiles on their faces.”
I’m pretty sure that these experiences have created emotional change in my students.
On the bus home after last Wednesday, I told the students that I would be speaking today at church. I asked if they had any messages for you.
“Give food” one girl yelled out.
We all chuckled, I guess that one is a bit obvious. We do need food to keep this going.
“Talk about God!” Another suggested. Another laugh from my group.
Nobody spoke for a few seconds...
“Do you feel like you made a difference today?” I asked.
“Yes, absolutely”, one of my boys replied.
“How do you know?” I asked.
“Well, people needed food and we gave it to them.”
It’s pretty hard to get ninth graders to be quiet, but at that thought we all sat silently for the next few minutes.
And I guess that’s what I’m speaking about today. What really matters to me, my students, the volunteers and most of all to the clients we serve is that we’ve made a difference, however small or big.
I mean we’d all love to solve hunger, and if you did, you’d probably win the Nobel prize!
But the chances of that are rather slim... I think they only give a few out every year, don’t they?
But making a difference with our food shelf is easy. I can guarantee you nearly a 100% success rate in difference-making. And that’s pretty good.
So thanks to everyone here who has made difference-making possible, let’s keep it going!
I guess what caused me anxiety was the feeling that something like “ending hunger” seems like something that I just can’t do. How can I stand up here and make the case that we are making a difference at our little food shelf? It’s too big! There are too many variables, too many problems, too many things outside of our control, and besides, I have a job. You have a job! We have things to do!
Whew!
I settled my mind a bit. I slept on it. I thought about my students, and the people that we serve. I knew what I wanted to say.
But, first, a little background. At Breck, all upper school students participate in weekly service learning. Each advisory group spends about an hour on Wednesday morning volunteering across the city at various institutions: working with young kids, senior citizens, people with mental or physical disabilities to name a few. In the years before the creation of the Shelf of Hope, I worked with people at opportunity partners, an institution that helps people with mental disabilities learn job and life skills, and also at Jones-Harrison, working with seniors who had memory loss.
These were all great experiences for me and my students in those years, but I felt like I wanted to do something a bit different.
It was about this time I was having these thoughts that Roger had spoken with Aron about a food shelf, I had a couple conversations with Aron, and I know that others were thinking about this problem of hunger and what Gethsemane might be able to do about it.
In my recollection, (and Sonja says I don’t always remember the details of these things) just a few weeks after the initial conversations with Aron, I told our service coordinator at Breck that I had a new location.
This idea for a service site was definitely out of the norm for Breck. Let me quote for you, an email I sent to Aron before we came for our first wednesday, back in 2008.
“I think a conversation ... about the work in the neighborhood would be excellent, and will give the kids a better idea of what "downtown" is like... I think a lot of them (and their parents, perhaps) don't have a solid idea.”
I continued on....
“We had the "Back to School" night last Thursday where I meet the parents of my Advisees. They were a little... apprehensive... about the site... I don't think that I did the most eloquent job of explaining it, but no worries. I'm really looking forward to it and feel that we'll get a good sense of where we're going here shortly.”
We really had no idea how this was going to all work, but we had a feeling, and that’s enough to get change started.
At the conference I attended this week in Chicago, I heard a presentation from an author by the name of Dan Heath. He wrote a book called “Switch: How to change things when change is hard.”
He argues that to make change, you have to appeal to both the rational and the emotional, otherwise, change won’t happen. Changing our mission to food is a big change.
Rationally speaking, I know we are making a difference. I see, along with the other volunteers, the clients coming each week. I read the numbers about how many thousands of pounds of food we are distributing. I hear people passing by the garden, literally singing (Zara can attest to this) singing our praises for doing what we are doing in the city.
But we’re also making a difference emotionally. I want to speak a bit about some of my students, since that’s who I know best in this equation.
Early on, in September, a student from my original advisory at Gethsemane two years ago came running up to me. Abby is her name.
“Mr. Colianni! Mr. Colianni I have a great idea about the food shelf! We’re going to collect food for homecoming and donate it to the food shelf! Are you still doing it? I think we can get a lot of food this year!”
She hadn’t been here for 2 years, but apparently it was on her mind.
Awesome! I said.
As it turned out, we collected so much food that we needed to reserve a larger bus for the ride over from school.
I’ve asked the kids to write entries on the shelf of hope website, here’s one of them.
“We start our day walking through the doors of Gethsemane church with a warm welcome from the many people waiting in the lobby. It's always amazing how happy they are, even though it's about 40 degrees and raining out today, and they might not have anywhere to go. After going into the back room, where they keep the food, we get to work. There are always lots of things to do including bagging up the fresh bread that is delivered each week, helping Doug pick out food for each individual person, picking food from the food shelf's garden, or organizing food on the shelves. Overall, we always have a fun time, and knowing that we're a part of feeding the hungry each wednesday, makes us leave feeling good.”
That was by Amanda.
Here’s another, from Luke.
“As I walk into the room, which emits a strong smell of Panera bread, I notice that there were many tasks that need to be completed. There's three full boxes of Panera goodness, a bag of tuna, and of course the garden. I decided to take the job of writing, cause it seemed fun. Maybe the internet will help get the word out about the Shelf of Hope. Well, I guess I'm not going to get anything done typing all day, so... I'm going to go serve now.”
Here’s another one, last year from Malayha:
“Today, our service group went outside with around twenty bagged lunches, it was a little chilly outside and really cloudy so we all had to dress warm. We went around downtown near Super Target and the IDS building. There were a few people around in Target and a few people sitting around in the IDS building. The people i went to really appreciated it and we all put smiles on their faces.”
I’m pretty sure that these experiences have created emotional change in my students.
On the bus home after last Wednesday, I told the students that I would be speaking today at church. I asked if they had any messages for you.
“Give food” one girl yelled out.
We all chuckled, I guess that one is a bit obvious. We do need food to keep this going.
“Talk about God!” Another suggested. Another laugh from my group.
Nobody spoke for a few seconds...
“Do you feel like you made a difference today?” I asked.
“Yes, absolutely”, one of my boys replied.
“How do you know?” I asked.
“Well, people needed food and we gave it to them.”
It’s pretty hard to get ninth graders to be quiet, but at that thought we all sat silently for the next few minutes.
And I guess that’s what I’m speaking about today. What really matters to me, my students, the volunteers and most of all to the clients we serve is that we’ve made a difference, however small or big.
I mean we’d all love to solve hunger, and if you did, you’d probably win the Nobel prize!
But the chances of that are rather slim... I think they only give a few out every year, don’t they?
But making a difference with our food shelf is easy. I can guarantee you nearly a 100% success rate in difference-making. And that’s pretty good.
So thanks to everyone here who has made difference-making possible, let’s keep it going!
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