Cohort 2: Workshop 4: Our Values, Our Community

The fourth session of Chicago Diller Cohort 2 was held at Temple Beth Israel. We began by discussing time management strategies and how we can improve how well we manage time in our daily lives. We identified what we do to manage our time already and discussed how to prioritize each task we have to complete.

Next, we took a short break to eat a little snack and socialized with each other while waited for three
very special visitors to join us. Hannah is the Associate Director of Organizing at the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless. She briefly explained to us what they did to support people experiencing homelessness. She then introduced two formerly homeless women, one was an adult, Leeanna, and the other was a high school student, Keleyah. They both told us their stories and what it was like being homeless. Leeanna spoke to us first. She spoke about her childhood, how she was in good shape when it all got turned upside down. She said the next handful of years were spent on the streets, where she got involved in harmful and dangerous activities. She spent a really long time in a penitentiary. She eventually realized what she was doing because she found out that to get a job, most employers do background checks, so she went to the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless to get back on her feet and help her find a job. Keleyah spoke next. At first, she seemed like a normal high school student, just like the rest of us, but when she told us about the struggles she endured earlier in her
life, we realized how much she has gone through just to go to school. She also got help from the
Chicago Coalition for the Homeless with her family. These stories were very inspiring.

That led into our next activities. After the three of them left, Brian and Colman volunteered to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, but with a twist. Colman was blindfolded while Brian had to tell him what to do, and Colman couldn't do anything else. After 10 or 15 minutes of the rest of us laughing at their expense, the sandwich was finished. The point of this exercise was to show how complicated communication can be and the importance of using clear instructions when asking someone to do something.

To finish off the session, we packed paper bag lunches for Inspiration Corporation, an organization in Chicago that offers programs for the homeless, to hand out to their clients. We split into groups, one group making peanut butter and jelly sandwiches (this time we could all see what we were doing) and others preparing bags of food and finally putting them all together to be distributed.

By: Adam Gurin