I had never thought twice about a pack of diapers. Why would I? They simply exist, piled on grocery store shelves, tossed into carts; changed, discarded, and replaced once more. Nothing special. Until they become something more. Until purchasing another pack means giving up something else. Until something your child physically needs turns into something you are unsure you can pay for. That was the situation Colleen once found herself in. Before she volunteered at the FreeStore– before she was the one asking others what they needed– she was a single mother walking through its doors because she needed help herself. She told me that "diapers [were something] I needed at the time.”
When one pictures someone who needs help or someone experiencing poverty, they often think of someone hungry, without a bed, a shower, or a home. Poverty is often pictured at its most extreme, as though struggle only becomes real once everything has already been lost. Someone’s hardship is only recognized once they hit rock bottom. Something as ordinary as diapers might not fit the image at first because financial hardship has a quota. You have to hit the quota before your struggle is considered serious enough to deserve help.
“I was at poverty level myself with my family. I’m a single mom, two kids.” Colleen expresses. Colleen explained that she got her start at the FreeStore “with a need,” when she saw a social media post about their services. When she arrived and saw that the FreeStore had diapers, she remembers being “really excited” because it meant she could provide them for her child. She recounts that FreeStore was a godsend for her when diaper prices (along with other newborn resources) were “just crazy.”
Poverty doesn't always match the narrow perception most people associate with it—that people facing poverty are “lazy” or that “they don't even want help”. In reality, Colleen was dedicated to caring for and providing for her children, all while facing financial hardship and needing help. She saw a social media post about something her family needed and made the decision to attend. Her experience forces us to reconsider how we picture someone who needs assistance. She kept raising her children, supporting them, and persevering in her own life. Needing help did not suddenly erase everything she was already doing for her kids. It did not erase her hard work and the effort she made to support herself and her family. Turning to a resource for support doesn't make her needy; it shouldn't attach any label to a person at all. In fact, it makes her strong; it makes her determined to better herself; it makes her resourceful and ready to advocate for herself. “Even people who maybe have, you know, higher income, they still have a need,” she emphasizes. There does not need to be a rags-to-riches story involved with needing support, and asking for support once doesn’t tie you to that “narrative.”
Eventually, Colleen’s relationship with the FreeStore began to change. She utilized the resource as long as she decided that she needed to, and she started to explore the volunteering aspect of the FreeStore. That was not a requirement. She could have utilized the resources until she was back on her feet and left. But she didn't. She made the decision to not only support herself, but take an opportunity to support others.
“Maybe you started off like me, where you needed that resource… and [now] you’re in a time where you don’t need the resource at the moment, and you can volunteer,” she expresses. However, Colleen didn’t suddenly transform into a completely new person now that she was “on the other side of things”. In fact, it brings the question: Are there other sides at all? What is the superiority in giving versus receiving? There is none. There is no hierarchy in what position you are in because the tables can turn in a second. There is never a guarantee that there is permanence in either role because needing help and being able to give it are circumstances, not identities. That is what makes people like Colleen so important… so special. And she is not alone. “A lot of our volunteers come that way… where they started [with] that need and now volunteer,” she notes. Their experience mirrors a cycle that exists within the FreeStore itself. The very individuals who once came in seeking assistance may eventually be the ones seated across the table, providing it. This makes the boundary between "recipient" and "volunteer" seem less fixed.
Colleen didn’t let her volunteering be a one-time thing, a two-time thing, or a three-time thing. She never stopped putting time into others. More than that, she gave, and continues to give, 100% of her heart to every person who walks in. She emphasizes, “This is a nonjudgmental place,” to any kid, adult, parent, or person who might need some extra assistance. She reminds them that, “We look at you as a human.” Human. Because why should someone seeking basic resources ever fear being treated as less than one? Colleen knows what it's like to walk through those doors in need of something, but she now also knows what it means to be the one standing there when someone else does. That is what makes her compassion feel so personal. She understands that needing help doesn't wipe away everything else that makes a person who they are.
Years later, the diapers are still there. But now Colleen is not the mother who felt relief upon spotting them on a shelf; she is the one asking another person, "Do you need diapers?" She recounts seeing people's eyes light up with excitement as they grasp that this resource is within their reach, the relief she herself once felt. Recipient. Volunteer. There is never a real separation between the two. Colleen stands as evidence of that. She did not grow more deserving, more skilled, or more human as she shifted from one role to the other. Her situation simply shifted, yet the person within it stayed the same. The mother who once entered those doors seeking support now stands behind them, ensuring someone else feels empowered enough to do the same. Needing help is not an identity, just as offering it does not make a person superior. What counts is that, whatever stage of life one is in, they aim to be someone like Colleen. Someone ready to see the person before the need.