THE NEIGHBORHOOD

VOLUNTEERING FOR THE NEIGHBORHOOD, INDIANAPOLIS

Each year, Sycamore School looks for volunteer opportunities that can potentially impact residents in the neighborhoods around the school and are available to Sycamore staff. One of the volunteer opportunities this school year was to contribute time at the Crooked

Creek Food Pantry, a pantry that benefits the local neighborhood, and also at Circle City Relief, an organization that serves in the School 60 parking lot at 34th and Meridian from 12:30 to 2pm every Sunday.

Sycamore School’s Head of Early Childhood, Jennifer Williams, remembers that she would to take her Kindergarten students to Crooked Creek when she was

a teacher at Sycamore, and Kindergarten classes continue that tradition with

Sycamore teachers, Ruth Moll and Marissa Argus. This year, Williams and other adults from the Sycamore staff volunteered their time at the pantry.

“The Saturday morning that I volunteered with other Sycamore staff was the first time I had actually worked at the pantry when customers were shopping,” Williams says. “When our Kindergarten class visits, the pantry director opens the pantry on an ‘off’ day just for our students. That Saturday, it was the day after a fairly large snowstorm, and several of the regular volunteers were not able to fill their shifts. The Sycamore volunteers were much needed.” In addition to an annual Sycamore food drive during Spirit Week in the fall, Sycamore teachers worked with Crooked Creek this year to teach students about volunteerism. The teachers and staff

also gave of their own time to help the organization with distribution of food to customers of the pantry. Williams said they had two main jobs during their time at the pantry. Before the pantry opened and during down times that morning, they stocked the shelves from items the pantry has stored in the back. After the pantry opened, our teachers and staff assisted customers with selecting their items.

Williams says she originally found out about the Crooked Creek Food Pantry through her church, St. Luke’s United Methodist Church. “They are one of the partners in the pantry organization. I was also looking for an alternative project for our Kindergarten Pilgrim unit,” Williams says. “That was when we

DIANE BORGMANN RACHEL ILNICKI

PATRICK JUDAY (LEFT) WITH BILL SZOLEK-VAN VALKENBURGH

landed on the idea of the Kindergarten students serving and helping their neighbors just as the Wampanoag people helped the Pilgrims. We had the students organize a school-wide food drive, collect and sort the donated items, take a field trip to the pantry, and stock the shelves themselves. The trip was a success and has continued for three years now. I believe our Kindergarten children are the youngest to visit and actually work there.”

The pantry is organized like a small grocery store, and customers use shopping carts and a checklist to guide them through the selection process. “The number of items in each category varies depending on the number of people in their family,” Williams says. “For example, they might be able to choose three canned fruit or vegetable items, one bread item, one meat item, and one milk item. The volunteer guides them through and tracks the number of each type of item chosen.”

Williams says she likes that the pantry serves people from the neighborhoods surrounding Sycamore. Families from Pike and Washington Townships are eligible to visit the pantry once per month. She also says Crooked Creek does a good job of giving the customers dignity, respect, and choice when visiting. I think it’s great that families have some choice within the shopping guidelines. The pantry also receives fresh produce from community gardens whenever possible.”

In addition to the annual Sycamore allschool food drive (which collected more than 6,000 items in 2017), Kindergarten students gathered a collection of books to donate to the pantry. Williams knows this type of philanthropy is an important piece of what we can do at Sycamore.

“It reminds us to look outside of

ourselves,” she says. “Whether it is in big or small ways, we all can find opportunities to help people around us. Sometimes we get so focused on our own lives that we forget to connect with others. Holding the door for a mom with a stroller, giving a kind word to the store clerk, picking up trash around your neighborhood, and spending a morning at the food pantry are all ways to make those connections.” n