Caleigh Stevenson - Amos House

For my senior project, I was a part of the group of volunteers working at Amos House. I had heard of Amos House before, and associated the name with a soup kitchen in South Providence. I learned after signing up for the Amos House that there was actually many more aspects to it than I'd originally thought. It also provides social services, permanent and transitional housing, classes in literacy and micro-business, and job training programs like the Friendship Cafe and the catering program. I worked in preparing food for the catering program, in the literacy program, in social services, and with my group on a project given to us with the assignment of creating a system for organizing and distributing the many donations of clothing that the Amos House receives throughout the year. I enjoyed preparing food for the catering program, but my favorite part of what I did during my time at Amos House was working at the literacy program. I was helping a woman preparing for an upcoming test to receive her high school diploma learn writing and mathematical skills. I could see the difference our one-on-one work as volunteers made for the people we were helping, which is why this was my favorite part of our work at Amos House. My least favorite aspect of our work at Amos House was working in social services, because I did a lot of paperwork and office work and everything I did that day was much more behind-the-scenes than the other days. I preferred the work where I could see the direct results of what I was doing. The Amos House seems to function extremely well, and they clearly are able to help those who need it in all of the important ways. I left Amos House with a much better understanding of what it is as an organization, how it serves those who come to it, and how successful of an organization it is. I was very impressed by the job training programs, especially the Friendship Cafe where those who have gone through training are offered jobs. We ate at the Friendship Cafe many times during the course of the two weeks, and this program was very interesting. I also was able to see how the catering program worked from helping prepare foods, and learned that Amos House actually prepares school lunches for many different schools in Rhode Island, including Gordon, which I found very interesting. Overall, my experience at Amos House was rewarding. I would recommend this site for others next year, but I would hope that it would be slightly better organized since there wasn't always a clear idea of where volunteers were needed and what would be helpful for them to do. Despite this, I enjoyed my time at Amos House overall.