Working at the Salvation Army, or Political Incompetency in Illinois Politics

Hey Folks,

This is Grace, here to tell you about our trip to a Salvation Army branch that provides temporary housing for families with children.  The trip was made by my work group (Lee, Emma, Max and Sam), and we were joined by Corinne midway through the day.

We started out be talking to Pam, who works at the Salvation Army as a volunteer coordinator in addition to many other things.  She was very grateful to have our help, because the Salvation Army in Illinois is very underfunded.  This is where the political incompetency bit comes in.  For about a year, the state of Illinois has been unable to come up with a budget.  This means that organizations like the Salvation Army are not getting funding from the state.  If this budget-less limbo continues, folks are predicting that the Chicago Public Schools will not be able to open.  And it looks like this budget nonsense will keep up until the governor of Illinois is out of office.

Krista, a DOOR volunteer who worked with us that day, told us that the budget has been an issue in Illinois for a while now.  She explained that the current governor was a sort of businessman turned politician, who had campaigned on the idea of being able to manage money well.  Sounds familiar.  Well, it hasn't turned out well, especially for the Salvation Army temporary housing place that we visited, that is now looking at a deficit of about 450,000 dollars.  That's quite a bit of moolah.

Well, onto something a little more cheerful.  I was very impressed with the set-up of the Salvation Army branch that we visited.  It is located in an old Holiday Inn, so residents stay with their families in the old hotel rooms, complete with the bathroom.  They offer computers for the purposes of finding employment or more permanent housing, as well as three meals a day for the residents.  Since children are the main focus the branch, Salvation Army staff are especially diligent about making sure that each child attends school, as well as all the meals, especially breakfast.

Talking about meals brings me to the main purpose of our visit - doing a vigorous deep-clean of the tables and chairs in their cafeteria.  This was, surprisingly, a lot of fun.  We played some Contact.  We used WHEAT, this conversation starter that Corinne introduced us to.  And it was very satisfying to see the changes to the furniture as we moved across the room.

It's too late at night to come up with a resounding, coherent conclusion to this jumble of thoughts.  I'd just like to say that it felt good to do a day's work for an organization and place that does good work, even while it is hindered by a lack of funds.