On Friday, a group of 12 students took time out of their afternoons to volunteer at a soup kitchen in downtown
Cincinnati.
The students traveled to St. Francis Seraph soup kitchen, where people who are homeless or have very low income are provided meals for free.
The groups were split up into portions to divide up the work.
The soup kitchen runs by asking people if they prefer one dish over another due to allergies – pork and beans or turkey and rice with a side of fruit, corn and mashed potatoes. The volunteers lined up and brought each of the 100 people who were in attendance their dish of choice.
Some students were designated to wash the dish trays in the kitchen, some were in charge of actually serving the food onto the platters, some delivered the food to the people and some were in charge of pouring drinks.
Xavier students were not the only volunteers at St. Francis on Friday. There were also students from Mount Notre Dame High School. After serving food, the group was given a tour of St. Francis Seraph, the church that runs the soup kitchen. It was over 150 years old and the group got to talk
with some of the Franciscan brothers who live there. The group headed back to Xavier around 6 p.m., and had a discussion about their experience. “Going to St. Francis Seraph makes me happy not just because I get to have fun with volunteers, but also because I get to see people for everything they are, not just some stereotype,” freshman
Taylor Fulkerson said.