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5
Stand Up for Kids, San Diego
Day 4: Tuesday, March 29, 2006
By: Garrett McKenna
Drexel University, Sophomore Biomedical Engineering
With the more surreal aspects of this week
starting to wear off (like being across the country with
a bunch of people I didn’t know a few weeks ago),
this trip is shaping up to be very fun and productive –
and we’re all getting along really well, too. With
the center already cleaned, we began the day by visiting
some of the museums in San Diego. Amy, Alana, and I went
to the museum of contemporary art while everyone else went
to a few of the museums in Balboa Park. The contemporary
art was really… uh… interesting. The most bizarre
exhibit involved an artist’s reinterpretation of the
beginning of the Book of Genesis, entitled The Jackleg Testament.
The artist, Jay Bolotin, did an astounding job of immersing
the viewer in his disturbing ideas, which ranged from Jack
& Eve running away to form a vaudeville act to the advent
of irony. Trippy, to say the least… and don’t
even get me started on the film that accompanied the exhibit.
Check out the website for the Museum of Contemporary Art
San Diego at http://www.mcasd.org.
After the art museum, Amy, Alana, and I walked
to Balboa Park to meet everyone else. We visited an automotive
museum briefly before it closed. It was more of a showroom
than a museum, really. Upon leaving the museum, it began
to rain, so we headed back to the center to make sure everything
was ready for the center to open and the kids to arrive.
Once the center opened for the evening, the
founder of Stand Up For Kids, Rick Koca, came and talked
to us about Stand Up For Kids and what the organization
aimed to accomplish. He also discussed what we could expect
to achieve in the week that we are here. It was very clear
to us how passionate he is about this organization and how
deeply he cares for kids in need.
After speaking with Rick, four of us had the opportunity
to go on street outreach, and Alana, Brian, Tamara, and
I volunteered. We, with three women who normally go on street
outreach, went to Ocean Beach. We stopped by a Starbucks
to pick up some pastries that they were donating to Stand
Up. With pastries, hygiene bags, food bags, and socks in
tow, we headed down to the beach. We quickly encountered
a group of young men who were chilling by the sand. They
had just gone dumpster diving and offered us some of their
food. Politely declining, we told them who we were and passed
out some supplies, for which they were very grateful. Continuing
along the beach, we came across a few more guys sitting
by a fire. We stayed with them for about a half-hour –
“the fire’s for everyone” – and
Brian played guitar with one of the guys.
Walking further along the beach, we didn’t
find anyone else, so we all piled into the van again and
drove to downtown San Diego. We stopped in front of Horton
Plaza, which is a popular mall. We saw a few kids that had
been in the center before, so we stopped to offer them some
hygiene and food bags, along with some of the pastries from
Starbucks. There were about twenty of them, all sitting
on a staircase that led up to the mall. We talked for a
little, but it was getting late. After saying goodbye, we
all got back in the van and came back to the center.
Tonight will probably filled with more games
and joking around with the people on the trip with me, people
who are quickly becoming my friends… but what I saw
tonight while on outreach will stay with me. It would be
a lie to say that I wasn’t shaken, that I wasn’t
upset to see these kids living these lives, wandering the
streets of San Diego. They wander the same streets that
people see on postcards and in travel brochures, the picturesque
quality of San Diego Bay juxtaposed with the stark reality
that these kids face daily. If such kids can be here, in
beautiful San Diego, they can be anywhere – and they
are. I am so grateful for this opportunity to help them,
and I know that we all are. I just hope that we can make
a difference.
