When people think of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania they think of things like Rocky, the U.S. constitution, and it’s always sunny in Philadelphia. A lot of people don’t see the other side of it.
The past 2 weeks I have been working with an organization called Rock Ministries which is located in a suburb of Philadelphia called Kensington. It’s on the other side of the Delaware river literally right beneath the train tracks. The night we arrived I was shocked by what I was seeing. Phoenix has a homeless population but nothing like this. That night our ministry host told us some rules of staying there:
1. You must wear close toed shoes when you go outside
2. A male must be with you at all times
3. Someone from the ministry has to be with you
4. You have to be in a group of at least 3 people
Honestly hearing these rules scared me but at the same time it pumped me up even more to go help. Our first morning here we were taken on a tour of Kensington. Before we left the pastor of the church, who was giving the tour, told us that everyone on the streets was either a drug dealer, drug addict, or a Christian just trying to help. He showed us all of the rocks ministry locations throughout Kensington. He also pointed out other ministries. He introduced us to a guy who runs AA meetings in Kensington and really tries to get them help. The thing that shocked me the most was the amount of needles and trash. The pastor told us that last year they installed trucks with bathrooms on the streets because there was a break of hepatitis because the homeless community had no where to go to the bathroom.
There have been a couple of days where we have gotten the chance to go clean up the trash off the streets. I never thought I would hate picking up something as much as I hated picking up the orange caps that are on needles. There were thousands of them. On the tour the pastor took us to a park that has gotten the name “needle park”. To make it even worse theres a playground for kids to play in. We went out one day and cleaned up as much as we could but it’s hard knowing that buy now it’s all back out there.
The Rock does a variety of things for the community. It first started as a boxing gym for the inner city youth. They invite kids off the streets and teach them how to box in hope’s that they’ll stay away from the drugs. Then it started expanding. They got the building next store and started there own church. Then they got a house which they allow 18-24 years old stay in to keep them off the streets. They also have another building that they open up a couple of times a week to hand out coffee and food to the community for free.
Unfortunately do to the Corona virus we have not been able to go out on the streets but we have been doing a lot around the building for them. I know that we still made an impact here.
