Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Reflection

I'm so impressed with my roommates and I. We decided to throw a party for MLK day and the long weekend, but didn't want it to be just a typical party. We wanted to respect the spirit of the day and the work of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. The original plan was to have some kind of service event Saturday afternoon, then have people our place to dance the night away. However, seeing as how we volunteer all day everyday, and there weren't really any service opportunities on Saturday, we organized a Social Justice reflection to help us process our own experiences in the service we already do.

We started the reflection around 7:00 Saturday night when the Portland JVs decided to show up; out-of-towners had been chillin at our house since mid-day. We had sent out reflection questions mid-week to let people prepare their thoughts and stories. Justin facilitated and came up with some more questions to discuss. At one point we broke into groups with people from other houses, then came back together. We started with simply sharing stories that have opened our eyes or changed our perspective on Social Justice, or stories of people we've worked with or clients that inspire us. It was so wonderful to hear stories from other JV's. We inspired each other and got to understand the jobs and struggles of our fellow volunteers. We talked about what it means to be born with "power" because you're were born white and grew up in the middle class; and how to use that power, or redefine it rather, working with the powerless. We talked about how we really aren't that many steps from the people we serve. A few unfortunate circumstances or wrong choices and we are right there on the streets and uninsured. We discussed how difficult it is to deal with people and trust their stories. Then how hard it can be do have a trying day and come home to a community that can often feel like a second job. I was so impressed with my fellow volunteers. There was one non-JV in the room. He's a Seattle Native who's college roommate is now a JV in Seattle and he's moved back home and become a pretty important part of the Seattle community. He was so thankful to be out of school but still connected to an amazing group of people that continue to feed him spiritually and challenge him to think about Social Justice and Service in new ways.

It was a pretty amazing time to come together and share and reflect.

Then as conversation eventually died down, we cleared tables and food away and boogied down.