Feeding the Homeless

Once a month, Webster faculty, staff, students and alumni participate in a feed-the-homeless initiative at Saints Peter and Paul Kitchen in Soulard, Missouri.

Nursing Professor Jody Spiess has been volunteering for roughly eight years and began spearheading the project three years ago. The project runs entirely on community and Webster faculty and staff donations. Spiess has made this community service an assignment in her curriculum.

“Student nurses already come into our programs with a lot of the experience and skills they need," she said. "Our programs are about changing the way you think, and this is the kind of experience that I feel changes me every time — even now.”

Spiess once doubted if her nursing students would share her sentiments, but interviews with current students and alumni confirm that her teacher instincts are well-honed. Alumni Branda Young has been helping for over a year now, citing “it's a fulfilling feeling for me to be able to give back.”

First timer Darielle Helms called her experience “very humbling and really gave [her] another sense of human spirit.” Charmaine Parker is also a first timer who said the experience takes her role as a nurse to a new level because it makes her consider policy and everything. “We do not just advocate for our patients at their bedside. Where are we sending them home? Where are they coming from? Do they have support? What is their community made of, and what are the laws and conditions that govern it? We need to use our power, our voice and our knowledge for our community and our patients.”

For more information about this initiative, please reach out to  Spiess at jodyspiess@webster.edu.