Grant Ebbesmeyer (Week 1)

Hey, everyone! I am so excited to be a part of the Summer Service Fellowship this year. It’s crazy to think about how quickly this first week went by, and I know it is just a small taste of what we will experience in the next few months.

For those of you who don’t know me, I am a rising junior from German Valley, Illinois, which is a very small town (population: 400) in the northwestern corner of the state. Although I do appreciate growing up there, I knew that I wanted to get away and experience new things in college. That is how I ended up at Rhodes, just over 600 miles away from home in a city that I never even thought about visiting before coming to tour campus. Needless to say, I fell in love with Rhodes and Memphis, and I am so grateful for the opportunities that I’ve had since coming here.

Among these opportunities, I have experienced things that I never would have been able to in my hometown. Soon after coming to Rhodes, I became involved with The Bridge street newspaper, which provides opportunities for people who have experienced homelessness (currently or in the past) to gain an income by selling the paper. Before becoming involved with The Bridge, I had never actually met or talked with someone experiencing homelessness—my only prior knowledge of homelessness was from seeing panhandlers in Chicago while visiting my sister. By actually getting to know people who have experienced homelessness and learning about them and their stories, I have learned so much.

Because of my work with The Bridge, I have become passionate about ending homelessness in this city and across the country. Although I love the work that I do with The Bridge, I wanted to get a different view of homelessness in the city this summer by working with Community Alliance for the Homeless. CAFTH is an intermediary organization that coordinates and facilitates homeless services throughout the city of Memphis. CAFTH places people experiencing homelessness into housing, assists organizations and agencies in receiving funding from foundations and the government, and operates the Memphis/Shelby County Homeless Consortium, which allows organizations and agencies to work together to end homelessness.

Due to the nature of the organization, our “clients” are both those experiencing homelessness who need housing, and other agencies and organizations providing homeless services in the city. During my first week, I spent most of my time working with the latter, and I had the opportunity to visit several shelters and other facilities supporting those experiencing homelessness in Memphis. Because I will not always be working directly with those experiencing homelessness, my experiences this summer will differ from many others’ experiences. However, I am excited to work with this organization, and I am eager to learn more about how service with this type of organization fits into the larger idea of service within Memphis!