March 31st Aubrey and Nancy

Today we started off the day serving in D.C. Central Kitchen. DCCK is a really cool organization that has job training in the culinary arts for formerly homeless people. it has an outreach program that helps people join the job program to get off the street, off drugs, or into a career. DCCK also has food that goes out into the community and feeds into 100 other organizations. Ms. Dot was in charge of the Salad station which as a vegetarian I got to be a part of. She was a character who liked things to be right. for example: we shouldn't take off our gloves until specifically told and the cucumbers are only meant to be shaved in three places. After that we got to eat food that was prepared in DCCK. It was really good and had representation of all of the food groups.

Between lunch and visiting the Capitol, we were able to lounge on the Capitol mall. A few of us found a fountain and laid down on the edge. A while later, a patrol officer came and told us that we were not allowed to lay down. One of the first thoughts I had was that the folks at the Capitol are very concerned with aesthetics: if they were so concerned with tourists lounging, how would they feel about the homeless wandering around and even settling down?

In the afternoon we started off lobbying MN representatives: Walz and Paulsen. We specifically asked about putting homelessnness in the front of the eyes of the gov't. Walz's aide was very helpful in telling us that most of the homelessness funds are allocated by state governments.

Right now we are preparing for the Homeless challenge. We will be out on the street from 2pm til 2pm. We are preparing the stories that will be our background as to why we are homeless. All of us will be recently homeless in our story. We have also been discussing our fears and worries. what will we say if someone does ask us our story? What are we going to do with nothing to do??? Will we be bored? Where will we go to the bathroom? How will others look at us? Will we get kicked out of restaurants or museums?

None of us have showered or shaved for the past two days. Our feet have been sort of worked in by all of the walking we've done but that also will factor into how tired we are while walking. I personally am going to wear pants I haven't washed for a month and the shirt I've worn for the past two days.
We will be traveling in two's and will meet up with the group for the night.There will be one cell phone among the pairs for safety and absolute emergency only.
By doing this challenge we hope to gain a partial understanding of the difficulties that go along with being homeless.
I really hope to push myself both physically and mentally and to really grow from this experience.