Shared Work, Shared Humanity

This week, students from Niagara University volunteered at St. Vincent Meals on Wheels and Hotel Dieu—working in the kitchen, packing meals, and spending time with residents.

Service is not charity given from one side to another; it is a relationship. It exists in the present. It recognizes that those who serve and those who are served meet as equals—each carrying needs, each holding dignity.

The students arrived ready to help. What they encountered, as so many do, was something deeper: the understanding that vulnerability is not a dividing line, but a shared condition. That human connection—eye contact, conversation, working side by side—is not incidental to the work. It is the work.

These moments are sustained by the generosity of our donors, whose support allows this work to continue and makes opportunities like these student visits possible.

Here in Los Angeles, where isolation can hide in plain sight, this kind of presence matters. It strengthens the fabric of a community not through grand gestures, but through steady, faithful acts of care—meals prepared, hands extended, time given; listening and seeing.

Our hope is that the students leave with something lasting: a clearer sense of purpose, a deeper understanding of shared responsibility, and the quiet knowledge that service changes us—often in small ways that stay with us.

Because real care is never one-directional.
It is shared, learned, and carried together.