Fred Jordan Mission

I hope I don't offend anyone at the Fred Jordon Mission with what I have to say about my first experience volunteering at the Mission on Thanksgiving 2008. It will not be nice, however, I hope that someone at the mission reads this and realizes that a lot of improvements needs to be made for the sake of all the homeless that they so proudly praise themselves for feeding on Thanksgiving.
After arriving at the mission, The volunteers had to wait over 3 hours to be assigned duties. Mind you that the homeless had been lined up since dawn eagerly awaiting the famous Thanksgiving meal they are promised every year. Little did they know what they would have to endure to get that fist meal. Once the volunteers were assigned "Group Leaders", each volunteer was assigned a duty. At this point I began to get excited because after waiting all morning we were finally going to get the chance to serve these unfortunate souls. The volunteers were never given instructions on what to do. During the assignments the group leaders were distracted by the mayhem and confusion that was building especially with the media beginning to flock to the tables to get that perfect shot or footage of how wonderful the fortunate is to the unfortunate. Then the mayor of Los Angeles along with officials of the mission began to give long boring speeches about how wonderful the occasion was and praising the work of the mission, when there were hundreds of hungry families, people sick and in wheelchairs, drug addicts, prostitutes and homeless persons that had been waiting in line up to that point 5 hours. I began to get disgusted. There was so much fanfare, media frenzy to capture the mayor handing out a tray of food that my stomach was turning. Then finally after the speeches. The organizers let open the gate to 20 persons at a time. Once the confusion of seating these persons was over, I thought to myself, at least now they can eat. But, I was wrong. Once seated they were treated to almost 1 1/2 of Jesus talk, gospel music, and lectures, knowing full well that the people seated in front them had gone through so much just to get in to sit down. A family of 6 asked me in spanish, "when is the food coming we are so hungry, our children are hungry". I assured them, as the anouncers had assured the crowd, that in a few minutes they would eat. But no, another 45 minutes passed and it was not because the food was not ready.They had to get the propaganda message of Jesus out to the starving. After the last guilt trip was given to the crowd that if we did't stand up and praise Jesus we would surely go hell, the mayor prepared himself for the photo oppurtunities that was about to abound. The first tray of food was laid down and finally after 6 hours a hungry man bit into the first morsal of food. The fanfare lasted over 30 mintues with only the first few persons at the table being served knowing that there were over a hundred other tables waiting to be served. But because the mayor took his own sweet time to spoon feed a poor latino immigrant child, everyone else had to wait. I can't decribe to you when I saw the faces of everyone else waiting to get served. The rest of the table, that waiting to be fed, were so gracious and thankful that they just sat with blank faces and patiently waited. Once the mayor left, then the rest of the crowd was feed. I wanted to cry. Instead of leaving with the spirit of love for mankind for the good that we do and feeling thankful, I left disgusted and dissapointed for the experiance that this Thanksgiving gave me at the Fred Jordan Mission. I don't think I'll ever go back. One ray of light in all of this. When I left,as I drove through skid row, I saw a little makeshift soup kitchen eagerly feeding the poor and homeless. No fanfare, no waiting in line 6 hours, no Jesus guilt. Just mankind feeding mankind unconditionally. Next year, I'm going to stop by this humble soup kitchen and offer anything I can to be able to contribute to their cause.