Northwestern University and Evanston's Only Daily News Source Since 1881

The Daily Northwestern

35° Evanston, IL
Northwestern University and Evanston's Only Daily News Source Since 1881

The Daily Northwestern

Northwestern University and Evanston's Only Daily News Source Since 1881

The Daily Northwestern

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Helping Hands

A small group of Northwestern students gives up their Saturday morning every week to volunteer at an inconspicuous grocery store on the West Side of Chicago.

Vital Bridges isn’t just any grocery store. The nonprofit organization provides free food, housing and counseling services to low-income people in the Chicago area who are affected by HIV and AIDS.

Three or four students volunteer there each week as part of NU’s HIV/AIDS Literacy Organization, a student group for AIDS awareness and prevention founded in Fall 2003. They typically get there at 10:30 a.m. and work until the store closes at 1 p.m.

“It’s a really small group, so everyone there is important,” said Weinberg senior Larisa Burke, a member of the student group’s executive board who coordinates volunteer work at Vital Bridges.

Volunteers’ jobs include sorting everything from Fig Newtons to Listerine to stuffed animals. They also take turns working as a receptionist at the front desk and bagging groceries.

“(Northwestern students) are vital in helping us to provide the services we give to our clients,” said Bertha Gonzalez, the food program coordinator for the West Chicago center of Vital Bridges. “They work very well, and they go beyond the call of duty.”

Vital Bridges has more than 420 volunteers working at five food pantries throughout the Chicago area, Gonzalez said. The organization’s Web site says the volunteers donate $750,000 worth of time and talent each year.

Alex Pictor, a Weinberg freshman, has gone to Vital Bridges every Saturday since the group started sending volunteers in September. He said more needs to be done about HIV and AIDS, and that he should do whatever he could to help.

“I thought it would be a really interesting experience,” he said. “I wanted to do something useful with my time.”

Burke saidthe student group is still looking for people interested in volunteering at Vital Bridges.

NU students are not the only people who volunteer at the center. Paul Kilian, a 47-year-old from Chicago, says he has been volunteering with the organization for a few weeks. He said he has had friends who died from AIDS, which was one of the reasons he chose to volunteer.

“I have several friends who are HIV-positive, some who have been for many years,” Kilian said. “If there’s something I can do to help, maybe this will in a little way.”

Burke, who has been with the student group for two years, said she did not know anything about AIDS before taking the American Lesbian and Gay History course at NU. She said she remembers her professor, Lane Fenrich, saying that the AIDS epidemic has a way of shining a light on the inequalities of this world.

“There are people who are infected and there are people who are affected”, Burke said. “And you’re one of those two things.”

Reach Andrew Bowen at [email protected].

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Helping Hands