We Have the Knowledge and Experience, So What’s Next? by Zachary Felty


My internship ended on Thursday and I have traded in my apartment in the city of Indianapolis for the home of my family. I have transitioned from my quite apartment to my hectic home with my parents and 4 siblings. Since coming home I have spent a lot of time reflecting on my ten weeks at Kheprw Institute. While working there, I saw things that I had only ever read about. Things such as gentrification, food deserts, and other ailments that low-income communities suffer from. I spent the entire summer helping to build out a fundraising campaign to help Kheprw address these problems. However, I still left feeling like I should have done so much more. I also have struggled with guilt since leaving Kheprw. Here is a low income community that is only 20 minutes from my home, that I had no idea existed. It has been right there for me to go and help in all this time, but I have done nothing for them up until this point. Knowing this now, having these feelings, and having gone and helped in this community, I know face the question of, what’s next? I have always tried to live my life by the mentality of: if we have the ability to help, we also have the responsibility to help. That leads me to the conclusion that if I know there are these low income communities so close to where I live, then instead of feeling guilty for not knowing, I should harness that guilt to make a difference like I did this summer. However, only one question remains, where do I start? I find this to be a difficult question, because I don’t spend a lot of my time in a single place. I spend a lot of time in Indianapolis (with my family) and at Valparaiso University. However, I have learned two thing for certain this summer: there are always opportunities to help nearby, and that help should only be what those in need say it should be. With that being said I think I will start to identify those in need around Valpo and perhaps more in Indy, then learning from them what they need, because assistance is useless if it is not what the those in need wish for. These will be my next steps, and then the next course of action will present itself after they have been taken. This is the closest to a plan that I can come up with while drawing on my experiences this summer. While I am uncertain about who is in need by my two homes and what kind of assistance they may desire, one thing is unquestionable; even after my time at Kheprw, there is still work to be done.

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