All That Glitters Is Not Gold
By Syntia ZeniThursday, Oct. 21, 2010
My back was beginning to ache. I had spent the past hour bent over a pile of green and yellow peppers, grabbing a fistful in each hand and gingerly releasing them into the plastic bags being passed down the line. Cucumbers, tomatoes, squash, canned goods, bags of potato chips and all other sorts of food were piled up alongside each other; at each pile was a volunteer mechanically placing their item in the passing bags. The sun was hot, shimmering in my downcast eyelashes like tiny jewels, but the air was still crisp and cool. A sweet breeze swept through us every now and again, like a rotating fan that kisses you with comfort -- creaks -- and then turns away again.
I paused to straighten my back and stretch out my legs, reaching up into the blue sky and turning slowly from left to right, each turn resounding a well deserved crack. As I stretched I looked down at the city of Los Angeles rolling beneath the hill we were standing upon. It moved like a grand decorated dragon at a Chinese New Year celebration, arching its back and dipping its head, scales flexing and shining in the light of the sun, each one more brilliant than the last. These are the images that my mind fabricates at the mention of Los Angeles or Hollywood Boulevard -- bright lights and flashing cameras, glamorous people and beautiful views, sophisticated restaurants and couture shops. But beneath these lovely scales, in the dark cracks and creases and folds, there lies a completely different side of California. Destitute people with hungry stomachs and hopeless eyes, who struggle to survive beneath the suffocating glamour of the rest of the city. In Los Angeles alone, every night, 11,000 people lay their heads down to sleep on the hard concrete sidewalks. One out of every six families is living beneath the poverty line. This ever growing need of basic amenities pushes many to crime and drugs, and gives gangs the power to entice even children to do their work. Desperation propelling them into a future that is even darker and bleaker than the one they face now. But the world cannot see their hands reaching out from beneath the scales, blinded by the bright lights and beaming smiles of Hollywood.
Yet it is out of such dismal realities that great people step forward and accomplish the unimaginable. Just as the sorrow and suffering in India birthed Mother Teresa, and racial discrimination and oppression made room for Martin Luther King Junior, so has the desperate need of the people of Los Angeles created Matthew Barnett. His burning desire to help these people manifested into a small church, and that small church grew to become the miracle that is the Dream Center. This giant, living breathing mechanism of willing hearts and busy hands reaches 35,000 people a week through 40 different services, 273 different ministries and outreaches, and even housing 500 of those in need. Food trucks filled with carefully rationed bags of much needed food, previously arranged by volunteers such as myself, go out 5 times a week into 31 of the neediest areas of Los Angeles. Every day they go out they reach 1,500 people, and each month 32,000.
In the week I spent at the Dream Center those numbers solidified before me into real people. Real men and women, teens and children, were waiting for us along the skid marked curbs of government housing projects, real gratitude trembling in their voices and real relief shining in their eyes. The ragged and dusty forms of the homeless were no longer shadowy silhouettes standing in the distance beside a street light or dosing beneath a bench. Suddenly they had materialized beside me and I saw them not as objects of fear or impatience or disgust, but as real human beings who hunger and thirst just as I do. Not only for food and water, but for someone who will to listen to them, who will acknowledge them, who will care about them. As a volunteer I gave out food and water, smiles and hugs, time and attention, but I left California feeling more blessed than when I had arrived.
The lifeblood of the Dream Center is the beautiful people who work tirelessly to keep it going, a constant flow of warm-hearted and diligent volunteers. Some are locals, coming in helping out and heading back home. But others travel from all over the world to do their part, devoting weeks or months or even a year at a time, to live in the Dream Center and work in their outreaches. One of my roommates, with bright blue eyes and curly red hair, had come all the way from Ireland and was spending her entire summer there. One night, as our van pulled out of the premises and headed towards the distressed areas of Los Angeles, I chatted with another volunteer who was a soldier stationed in the Middle East. He had decided to spend half of his 30 day leave volunteering at the Dream Center. When I gushed at his selflessness and generosity he smiled and shook his head. In his mind it was the Dream Center that was doing him a favor, healing him from what he had seen overseas.
I found that sentiment to ring true with just about every volunteer I spoke with. Even everyday people without dramatic background stories expressed the great return that had bloomed in their hearts and minds and brightened even the most uncorrelated pieces of their lives. I myself have been drastically changed during my short week there. If you have a heart for helping others and want to get a hands-on experience of the beautiful city of Los Angeles, the Dream Center is an incredible opportunity for both. For more information about how you can help, check out www.dreamcenter.org.
