N Street Village

On the beautiful day that was last Saturday, I set out for N Street Village in Northwest DC. The Village is a community center that provides services for homeless and low-income women including employment workshops, tutoring, health services, and a place to stay. The UVA Club of Washington was doing a resume/interview workshop there and I figured it was the perfect start to my volunteering.

Upon my arrival, I was immediately reminded of how blessed I am for everything I have. I think it's good to get that dose of reality every once in a while, especially after a particularly tough couple of months.

I was assigned to the interview portion of the workshop, creating a mock interview for women to practice, after leaving the resume tune-up room with my fellow college alum.  This tune-up process must have been pretty belaboring, because after almost an hour with no customers, I decided to see what else I could find.

I ended up in the arts and crafts room, helping to organize dozens of bags of donated materials, until they called me for my first interview.

I spent the next two hours asking general interview questions to extremely competent, huge-hearted women, with absolutely zero confidence. Their answers were spot on, they had tons of experience in their fields, and they genuinely wanted to work hard at these jobs. But they announced their anxiety multiple times throughout the interview, sweated, and giggled nervously. And it was me. And I was wearing Reefs and bright pink shorts from the Gap.

I spent the feedback sessions giving bits of advice, but mostly telling them they had all the experience and all the words they needed, and with a little self-assurance, I would definitely hire them.

All in all, it was a super fun and rewarding experience, and I left feeling like I helped all parties involved, myself included.

For obvious reasons, I couldn't take pictures of my new friends inside, but here is the front of the Village.