During the spring semester of 2022, I have focused all my service-learning hours on the volunteer services towards homeless individuals. I attended two different services that both had the goals to serve and aid the homeless of our local area. The first project that I attended was a blanket making project. The goal of this project was to supply homeless people of the area with homemade blankets. Along with the blankets, we also provided written affirmations and resources that those individuals can go to for support. The other volunteer opportunity was to serve meals at a local homeless shelter for men who struggle with substance abuse.

            The blanket project took a majority of the semester to fully accomplish. We began our works by having multiple zoom sessions for planning and grant applications. These zoom sessions took place during February 14^th, March 21^st, March 23^rd, and April 4^th. Each zoom lasted around an hour and was meant for preparation for the materials that we needed to make the blankets. We also spent that time deciding what audience we wanted to provide the blankets to, as there are many homeless shelters in the area, and we only had the resources to donate to one shelter. Once all planning was accomplished, we split up into groups and made the blankets at home. My group was provided with materials to make two blankets. These blankets were worked on during April 11^th, and April 14^th. Both blankets took our group nearly 2 hours each, because of their large size. Once blankets were finished, we all came together on April 20^th to create our information cards and package the blankets up for donation. In total, this service-learning opportunity came to a total of around 9 hours in work.

            An appropriate interprofessional collaboration for our blanket project would be interprofessional teamwork and team-based care. We utilized this form of collaboration by utilizing teamwork throughout the bulk of our project. During the planning stage, we would all come together to design our grant application. Each person filled in a section of the application to support raising money for our cause. Once we had our materials, we teamed up yet again to create the blankets. Finally, we all collaborated once again to provide resource cards to go along with the blankets. Although we did not directly interact with the people receiving the blankets, we participated as a team to meet an end goal of providing support for those that are in need.

            My next project was to serve meals at a local homeless shelter. I completed a 3-hour shift at this facility on March 31^st. My main duties were to make the people feel comfortable and provide them with meals as they each came into the facility. This experience was a challenge for me personally, as this shelter was specialized towards men who were under the influence of drugs. As a singular female who went into the volunteer opportunity alone, I felt very nervous coming into this opportunity by myself. However, the workers were very supportive, and helped me through my fears during my training.  

This experience is geared more towards the roles and responsibilities for collaborative practice. Each worker at this facility had a specific role that they were to perform towards the care of their clients. For example, one worker oversaw laundry, another for sign ins, and the other for providing meals. Each worker had responsibility within their own field that ultimately lead towards the collaboration of providing care for the people that came in.

            Since both projects were aimed towards the support of homeless individuals, I am going to be providing both completed projects with the same social determinants of health. The homeless community needs additional support with economic stability and social and community context. Although we as volunteers cannot provide economic stability towards this community, we can provide resources that can help them get on track towards stability. For example, the resource cards that we designed had facilities recorded on them that could potentially help homeless individuals in this field. By merely showing support for these communities, we are already initiating the process of bringing social aspects of the community to the homeless. Acts of kindness show them that they matter and will hopefully keep them motivated.

 As a volunteer, I feel that the projects that I have completed have made an impact on this community and has brought awareness towards how large our homeless community is in our local area. This community is extremely under looked and deserves proper respect from the rest of our world. Therefore, this experience has enlightened me to acknowledge minority groups within my area and has encouraged me to give back more to my community.

                                                                    References

Healthy People 2030, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Disease

Prevention and Health Promotion. Retrieved [date graphic was accessed], from https://health.gov/healthypeople/objectives-and-data/social-determinants-health