Occasionally we'll be sharing thoughts from Krystle, a Salvation Army social worker. Hope you enjoy her perspective.
My name is Krystle Englund, and I am a licensed social worker working for the Salvation Army Social Services in downtown Minneapolis. The office that I work in serves a very unique population – homeless singles adults. We serve people who are staying in downtown in housing, or in overnight shelters. One of our most requested needs is hygiene items, and unfortunately, it is one of the items that we have a hard time keeping on our shelves. I have attempted to contact hotels, dental offices, and even my college trying to collect hygiene items for our clients. After all of the hard work that it takes to collect donated hygiene items, it feels great to have a client get excited over a nice stick of men’s Speedstick, or Dove soap, or even conditioner for some of our women clients.
I think about how much I have taken for granted in my life when a client expresses thanks for the little things. Everyday I use my head and shoulders shampoo in the shower, and a majority of our clients aren’t able to bathe daily, or wash their clothing weekly, while I have access to a shower, washing machine, stove, and refrigerator without trouble.
Our office is also unique because we are the only food shelf in our area to serve homeless individuals. Most other food shelves require mail in order to use the food shelf, and most of the homeless are not able to have mail delivered to the shelter, instead it is delivered to general delivery at the postal office. I try to stock our food shelf with easy “grab and go” type items, and things that clients do not have to prepare. Most of our items are microwaveable, and there is a microwave at the Harbor Light, where most of our clients stay. The clients seem to get excited over little things, such as having “real” milk (a half gallon of milk), instead of powdered milk or condensed milk, or they enjoy it when we throw a few granola bars in their bag as a snack. Some of the clients we serve are on medications, and they need to take their medications with food, but don’t have anything late at night before bedtime, so a granola bar or a package of ramen noodles does the job for them. As I write this, I have designated a whole drawer for “snacks” which I really don’t appreciate.
I guess the main point of this blog is for everyone to not take material things for granted. Many of us are blessed with friends and families to help us out when we are in a pinch, but many of my clients do not have those support systems in place. Just remember that the little things really do count.
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