A week at Sarnelli House

By Carissa Kumlander |

When my mother first told me I was going on a trip to Sarnelli House in Philadelphia, I didn’t understand why she was sending me to a different state just to serve at a soup kitchen. I figured volunteering locally for a day would give me the same experience that travelling all the way to Philadelphia would. Despite many arguments over this topic, my mother got her way, and I soon found myself packing my bags to spend a week at Sarnelli.

Four other teens, a chaperone, and I took off for the city of Brotherly Love on a Monday morning. We were all expecting to spend a long and tiresome week in the Kensington District, one of Philadelphia’s most dangerous areas. When the van first pulled up to Sarnelli House, I was terrified. I could not believe my own mother would send me to what appeared to be such a dangerous place, and I immediately wanted to go home. Little did I know that by the end of the week, I would find myself begging to stay at Sarnelli.

We spent the week cooking for upwards of 200 guests a day, serving them lunch or dinner. The people would come in, get their home-cooked meals, take a seat, and begin to speak with others around them. Sarnelli is not merely a soup kitchen: it is a community for all of those in Kensington, and we were encouraged to speak with the guests as much as we could.

I started out by listening to some of the people’s conversations and eventually began to take part in some of them. The guests all had different stories or advice to give, but one thing about them was the same. The gratitude each and every one of them had for the simple work we were doing was indisputable. They were all so grateful for everything they had, even though they had virtually nothing.

On my last day at Sarnelli I spent my time on the steps, passing out hand sanitizer to all the guests before they went in for lunch. Most of the people greeted me, got their hand sanitizer, and progressed inside to eat, except for one man.

A little old man named Moose sat outside beside the steps in his wheelchair while one of the resident volunteers went inside to get his meal. Because of his disability, he could not make his way up the stairs and into the back yard to eat and socialize. I began chatting with him and asking him questions about himself. He went on forever about his life and how he ended up on the streets of Kensington.

When it was time for him to leave, he told me he wanted to tell me one more thing. He said to me, “Never give up on your dreams, or you’ll end up out here like me.” With a giant smile on his face, Moose wheeled away.

The positivity that radiated from Moose and the other guests is what really stuck with me after my trip. These people have absolutely nothing in their lives yet still seem to find the light in their situations. To see how much a simple meal and two hours of companionship affected them was incredible. Without the help of Edward, the resident volunteers, and the Sarnelli House itself, most of these people would go not only without food but also without anyone to simply talk to.

Carissa is a senior at Saratoga Springs (New York) High School and a member of St. Clement’s Parish. Along with the parish youth minister, Randy Rivers, Carissa and five other teens from the parish visited Sarnelli House during their spring break, the week of February 16–20, to do service work.