Our trip with our high school students to San Francisco was such a fun and rewarding trip. We went to the Tenderloin district of San Francisco which is an area of San Francisco where there are high rates of poverty and drug use. We served with an organization called City Impact, which is an outreach organization that works to combat hunger, poverty, and provide opportunities for education for kids in the community.
On Friday late afternoon after school we loaded up two mini vans with some leaders from the church and the high school students who signed up to come with us. We arrived late Friday night and the reality of the neighborhood we would be serving in started to sink in. We slept in one of the City Impact buildings and fell asleep on bunks to the sounds, smells, and lights of the city.
We woke up early the next morning at 5 am. Our students were troopers as they all got up early. That Saturday, City Impact was putting on an outreach event in the form of a block party carnival for kids, passing out hot meals to people in the community, and setting up a venue for anyone in the community to come and sit down and be served with a hot meal. Our day started out with all of us setting up barricades to block off the streets for the party.
After that, we all dispersed and served in different areas whether that be meal prepping, cleaning up the streets, sorting through clothing donations, or setting up the dining experience. It was a packed day which ended with us having an evening out at Pier 39, and concluding back with games at our dormitory. We attended a church service the next morning to wrap up our time with City Impact.
Overall, the weekend really led us to bond with our students as they had perhaps uncomfortable and new experiences outside of what they know and are used to in Truckee. We are so grateful for this experience and to serve alongside our students.