Early risers bring food to those who need it most

By Jack Wagner

As you breathe in, the icy air of a Santa Clara morning attacks your lungs. Eyes filled with sleep, you can hardly believe that you are awake at 5:30 am on a Saturday. A small group of similarly shocked people is standing around you, all waiting outside of the Campus Safety offices to leave for Julian Street Inn.

It's worth it though, as you know that while your peers will be sleeping the previous night off until noon or later, you are up and helping those who need it most.

This is the life of volunteers for the SCAAP organized Julian Street Inn program, especially for program coordinators from this year and last year, Margot Reilly and Jahayra Molina.

According to the InnVision website, Julian Street Inn provides emergency shelter to clients diagnosed with mental illnesses. They have 70 beds available for those who need them, and guests can stay for up to 60 days.

Regarding the residents of Julian Street Inn, Molina said, "You get to meet these people that come from different backgrounds who have backgrounds that might be parallel to yours and it's a great opportunity to sit there and realize that some issues are not preventable at all."

She also went on to say that she had met, on more than one occasion, residents who had gone to Santa Clara or who had been working professionals before something had gone wrong.

Julian Street Inn also offers a Day Rehabilitation Program that runs from Monday to Friday every week. This program offers rehabilitating services to residents and former residents, such as one-on-one counseling and support groups.

InnVision says that the support groups are designed to, "increase coping skills, maintain sobriety, and develop resources to help them maintain independence," all parts of getting the residents back into society so they can function at the level they used to be able to.

The above-mentioned programs run from Monday to Friday, creating a grueling week for residents of the shelter. But then comes Saturday.

Saturday mornings are the only days of the week that residents are allowed to sleep in. They would be foolish to do so however because starting if they wake up at usual hours, they will be in for a special treat, a hearty breakfast cooked by the hands of Santa Clara students.

For the students, the entire process can begin on Friday night.

This year's Julian Street Inn coordinator, Reilly, a sophomore, says that on some Friday nights she stays up all night baking, and one time only got an hour of sleep.

She purchases food and then meets with the other volunteers at 5:30 am in front of the Campus Safety offices.

From there they drive to the shelter, which is only about ten minutes away, located roughly a block behind the HP Pavilion.

Once at the shelter the group of volunteers is broken up and each is assigned tasks for preparing or cooking food.

Reflecting on her experiences from last year Molina said, "Its nice when you have a small group because people get to know each other."

The food itself is one of the things that Reilly is really focusing on this year. She wants the residents to have healthier and heartier meals.

Other changes that she is trying to implement are having residents listen to music while eating and putting flowers on the tables, all part of her plan to make the Saturday breakfasts a more special experience for the residents.

After the food is cooked they serve it to the residents and once everyone is served the volunteers serve themselves and sit down with the residents and talk.

Both Molina and Reilly agreed that talking with the residents is the best part of the entire experience.

"Its interesting," said Reilly, "It's cool to interact with people who you would just normally not interact with."

Molina once met a woman who told her about how she had been a professor and how she and her husband had traveled the world during breaks. Her husband died though and she became schizophrenic and bipolar, losing touch with reality and falling from society.

Reilly had similar stories, but also shared some humorous ones.

"I was talking to this guy who claimed that he could remember when he was a fetus and so he was doing this skit thing about what it was like... so he started swirling around in a circle going 'floating, floating, floating,' but yelling though, and all of the sudden he made these screeching, terrible sounds and I was like, 'labor?' and he just looks up and says, 'trucks on a highway,' and then keeps eating again," said Reilly.

It's a small way of helping out those who need help most.

Contact Jack Wagner at jcwagner@scu.edu or (408) 554-4546.