Here’s the Horton’s Kids office building. Located directly next to the United States Supreme Court and exactly across from the United States Capitol Building. Not bad, huh? This is where I’m lucky enough to spend my mornings- working with Horton’s Kids Youth Development team, researching best practices in older youth development, enrichment, and mentoring programs when I’m not crafting career prep lesson plans for high school students. The office is cute and welcoming- filled with bright colors and even brighter smiles of children on posters covering every empty wall. I loved it as soon as I walked in.

Here, on the other hand, is the Horton’s Kids Community Resource Center. Located directly next to an outdoor basketball court and a bus stop, and exactly inside of a Wellington Park housing project where nearly all of the children we service live. This is where I’m lucky enough to spend my afternoons- helping pass out diapers every other week, serving daily meals, sorting through donations for our food pantry and toiletry bank, when I’m not reading with, facilitating programs, and letting the youth tirelessly pull at and play with my hair. The center from the outside blends in with the housing project that it is located within, and when the large metal gate is pulled down to cover the windows and doors, barely looks livable. However, the inside is filled with bright colors and even brighter smiles of the actual children that come through. I loved it as soon as I walked in.

It seems impossible that these locations are barely a 15 minute drive from one another. One located right in the middle of beautiful Capitol Hill- where my commute consists of historic buildings and congressional staffers, interns, and sometimes actual representatives in tailored suits. The other located across the Anacostia River in DC’s Ward 8- where we drive as a team for safety reasons and the commute consists of boarded up shops and broken windows. It also seems impossible, to many, that I would even consider calling myself “lucky” for the time I spend at the Community Resource Center. The looks I’ve gotten from anyone once I mention the location of my work range from “I’m so sorry” to “are you crazy?”

My first Monday on the job I attended the weekly staff meeting in the office. The executive director sat down at the table, which was crowded with staff members who pulled up chairs and some who ate their lunch while others took notes. “Well,” Robin started, “one of our kids got shot last night outside of the center.” Everyone was, of course, filled with concern and sorrow, but not exactly shock. This was the fourth occurrence of its type in the past four months. Luckily, they have been majority foot wounds, and although several other kids got grazed by bullets in the drive-by, none were seriously injured. About an hour after that announcement, I was in a car on my way to that very spot.

Now, if you know me, this isn’t my first experience related to youth living in poverty, or “at-risk.” Coming from a suburb of Chicago, I was fortunate enough to tutor youth in the western neighborhood of Austin all through high school. Last fall, I spent my time in D.C. researching child poverty, food insecurity, and homelessness with the Children’s Defense Fund. I have always had a heart and calling to service those in need, particularly youth, and it is no coincidence that I ended up back in Washington doing just that. However, it is not hard to imagine the challenges that come with working hands-on with this particular population. There are youth who don’t seem to care about school, jobs, or their future in general- because the environment they’ve grown up in doesn’t encourage any of those things. There are children, as young as 4th or 5th grade, whose guardians don’t if they show up to school or not- some may even prefer if they stayed home to help around the house.

I would say I love what I’m doing despite all the challenges, but that implies that the challenges themselves aren’t blessings, and they are. I love what I’m doing because of and through each and every challenge. I feel a strong sense of responsibility and  connection to these kids and youth that I’m working with, and that motivates me and generously pushes me through even the days where I work until 8, or the Sunday’s that I work to take the kids on pool trips. You never even realize how much energy you have until you’re doing something you absolutely love and have a heart and passion for. Now, if this isn’t an indication of vocation, I’m not quite sure what is.
What I’ve learned thus far ranges from how to construct a lesson plan for high school students to most effective youth development programs to “street lingo” used by the kids in the neighborhood. (Yes, they actually created a glossary of terms to inform other staff and myself.) While I enjoy walking through Capitol Hill on the way to my office and having lunch breaks outside of the Library of Congress, I especially appreciate every minute spent in Wellington Park. The stark inequality is so blatantly obvious that I cannot help but feel responsible to help create and identify opportunities for the youth that live just 20 minutes from the President of our country, yet are seemingly forgotten by so many. I’m excited to see where this calling leads me through the rest of my time in DC as well as in the future.