Yale Day of Service

Thirty-seven volunteers, all of whom somehow connected to Yale University, manned the Beacon on Saturday May 16, 2009. Located in downtown Houston, the Beacon provides basic services such as a noontime meal, showers, and laundry for Houston’s homeless population.

Registering the near 500 homeless as they arrived at the opening shift were Jenny and Jessica Allen, Lily Berniker, and Bill Hixon. The girls are students at St. John’s High School as well as children of Yale graduates. Serving in the kitchen were Chinhui Juhn, Eddie Allen, an interloper from Princeton and husband of Chinhui and father of Jessica and Jenny, and Eric Berniker, father of Lily. They chopped and diced an infinite supply of fruits and vegetables. The coffee accoutrements cart was ably handled by Jane Curtis and her fifth grade daughter Hannah. While Chinhui wore her Yale Day of Service t-shirt and others donned Yale attire, my favorite was Hannah’s simple Yale shirt leaving no doubt of her affiliation.

Chip Cowell, his girlfriend Ronnye Patterson, Travis Torrence, and Robin Preussel served in the laundry room. Arriving and staying late were Austen Furse and his fifth grade daughter Katherine and her friend Tessa Twiford.

The second shift commenced at 11:00 and an energetic group of twelve relieved our hard working early arrivers. Fairfax and Risher Randall and Leslie Goldman took over at the registration desk. Joe Sassin and his daughter Alexa, a recently admitted high school senior, served in the kitchen along with Sylvia and John Freeman, Linda Weiner, Carolyn Swann, and John Gealy. William Booher took over at the coffee accoutrement cart. Omar Rouchon was our sole representative in the laundry. At this time of day, the Beacon is bustling with activity as lunch is being served.

Clean up began in earnest with the third shift. Nena and David Karohl, Kevin Lewis, Blake Barnett, and the Kantor-Stone family served on this final shift. All was done by 4:00 p.m. While by the Beacon’s standards, the crowd was smaller than usual, all our volunteers were put to work doing useful assignments. Several took the business card of Mike Puccio, the Beacon’s Executive Director, and were considering a return visit with their church, synagogue, employer, or just individually.

The celebratory reception was not well attended but we did see Marlon Castillo, captain of our Habitat for Humanity project, which had taken place at the same time as our project at the Beacon. He reported that some fifteen volunteers helped construct a home for a needy family in Pearland (south of downtown Houston). All together, fifty-two volunteers from the Yale community in Houston spent a day giving back a little of its time to help others and paradoxically gained much more. The “can do” spirit is alive and we thank the AYA for fanning the flame.

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Enjoy! - Risher

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