Rhode Island Summer
While most of the SHAWN team was in New Haven for 2023 SHAWN Summer, every summer I live in Rhode Island, so my community engagement experience was in the Ocean State. This experience included fulfilling volunteer experiences at two agencies:
Rhode Island Center Assisting those in Need (RICAN): RICAN provides groceries to those experiencing food insecurity. They also have a food rescue program that utilizes food from local grocery stores that would otherwise be thrown away. “Since the program started RICAN has rescued over 800,000 pounds of food.” In addition, RICAN operates a thrift store that provides inexpensive clothing and furniture and puts the money into sourcing food for the pantry.
Charlestown Land Trust Farmer’s Market: The vendors at this farmer’s market are local to the community and the Charlestown Land Trust buys land to conserve the native plants and wildlife. I helped set up the stands and assisted the elderly patrons with their shopping needs. Many Farmer’s Market clients are EBT/Snap eligible.
It was interesting to discuss the New Haven agencies that the other SHAWN team members visited and compare them to these RI programs. My peers’ experiences of working in New Haven, which is a busy city with a diverse community, was very different from my experiences in a quiet beach town, but both communities are impacted by the systematic issues of housing and food insecurity. While the Farmer’s Market in Charlestown is EBT/ Snap eligible, it is a resource that is often under-utilized because there is a lack of accessible transportation options for low-income individuals. My suggestion to the Farmer’s Market would be that they organize community pick up spots around town and a bus could take people to the market and back. Or consider a mobile van that could deliver food to someone’s residence. From my volunteer experiences, I also learned that Charlestown has seen an increase in unhoused individuals because of rent inflation, especially because it is a popular tourist destination. New Haven has greater need but it also has more reliable public transit and more services to assist unhoused individuals and people experiencing food insecurity.
Being away from the team had its challenges such as attending our weekly meetings through Zoom. I missed being on campus to spend time catching up with colleagues in-person during office hours. At the same time, I formed lasting connections with the other volunteers and gained experience working with food insecure individuals, which is the issue I intend to work on once I graduate. My experiences in RI connect to SHAWN because we have many of our project participants have experienced periods of homelessness. This instability made it more difficult for them to form and keep their social support networks, maintain regular employment, and focus on their recovery from drugs and alcohol. Understanding how people cope with these issues in other communities helps me to consider these problems, and possible solutions, in a new light.