Work Day 2 in Fort Worth

Today we woke up to meet at 7:15 and prepared for our day by watching videos about the places we were going and a video teaching us the differences between empathy and sympathy. Then we headed over to Neighborhood Needs, a local food pantry that provides people with groceries on Tuesdays and Saturdays. We packed carts full of different groceries and then pushed them out to the cars. I (Corinne) got the task of pushing a cart full of toys around to give out to parents and kids, a very fun experience to help parents choose the right toy for their children. We finished up at the food pantry after 3 hours of volunteering and getting to bring food out to people and talk to them. Then we headed over to a great picnic lunch at Clearfork next to the Trinity River in Fort Worth!

Our afternoon focused on a presentation on advocacy. We listened to a representative from Church World Services, Ayesha Hassan, talk about how we can help refugees by using our voices and we put the advocacy into practice. We wrote letters and emails, and even called senators to advocate for the FY23 refugee admissions goal. We were advocating to raise the goal to 200,000 refugees. This evening we ate some delicious brisket and mac n cheese. Following our meal we competed in a bake off. The two teams went to Tom Thumb and bought out supplies. The two dishes made were a naughty brownie and an apple puff pastry. After a tough competition, the judges were at a draw on deciding who won so it was a tie!