The First Thing I Said Was “I’m Really Anxious”: My First Day Volunteering at Peace House

Walking into Peace House in South Minneapolis, I thought I needed a role. Instead, I learned what it means to simply show up.

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When I first arrived in South Minneapolis, I couldn’t even find parking. My GPS kept looping me around, making it seem like the building was a mile away when really it was right there the whole time, and by the time I finally parked, I was already overwhelmed. Outside, there were people digging through a trash can, trash scattered across the ground, and I remember thinking, what am I walking into?

When I stepped inside, the first thing I said to the volunteer was, “I’m really anxious right now.” I didn’t even try to hide it. I needed something—someone—to attach my mind to, just to steady my racing heart.

At first, I didn’t understand what I was supposed to do there. I had come thinking I might learn how to cut hair, but there was no one there to teach me, and I kept wondering what I was even doing there, what volunteers actually do in a place like this. One of the women told me, “If you’re not doing something like hair, you’re here to listen. To be a presence. To be a kind of friendship.” But the room didn’t feel still enough for that. People were constantly coming in and out, grabbing food, talking, leaving again, like dozens within the hour, and it felt chaotic in a way that made it hard to imagine sitting down and really knowing anyone.

She showed me around anyway. There was a wall of volunteer photos, and she mentioned, “Sometimes people just take their pictures down.” Then she brought me to a back room with shelves of hygiene items and clothing, and told me, “If something’s missing, I’ll go to the thrift store with my daughter and pick it up.” Shoes, small essentials, things that might not seem like much but clearly mattered. That stayed with me because she was already volunteering her time and still finding ways to give more. There was also a place where people could charge their phones, and that detail hit me in a very practical way—of course, if you’re less housed, where do you charge your phone, where do you keep anything steady for even a few hours?

We sat down and she offered me food, and I said yes, mostly because I needed something to focus on besides how anxious I still felt. Later she told me, “You did a really good job regulating yourself by the time we sat down,” which surprised me because it didn’t feel like I had done anything intentional, just that sitting helped.

We started talking about her past as a substitute teacher, and she said none of this made her anxious compared to what she had seen before, like students throwing chairs or situations that felt unpredictable in a different way. I told her, “I had a small student jump on me once and beg me not to call her mom that day.” Another volunteer nearby laughed and said, “Yeah, you’ll be lucky if you see me for the next eleven days after this,” and we all laughed, and it felt like a moment where I could actually exhale.

At some point, I could tell she thought I’d be capable of doing this kind of volunteer work. Maybe she says that to everyone, because it’s obvious they need people, but it still made me pause and think about whether this was something I could actually do.

I started thinking about why I felt drawn to this space at all. My own mother was less housed for a long time, and even saying that out loud felt complicated, like something I wasn’t sure how to place. But I’m starting to understand that it shapes the way I see places like this—not because I share the same circumstances, but because something in me recognizes it, or feels close to it in a way I can’t fully explain.

Later, I sat with a woman who had bright purple hair, curled carefully, and she told me, “I did it myself.” We talked for a few minutes about hair, about how important it is to feel put together, to feel confident as a woman, and it was such a small, light conversation, but it felt real in a way that didn’t ask anything from either of us.

Before I left, the volunteer explained more about what people could offer there. She said, “You’d be surprised—people can give as much as a nail cut. Or help identify wounds and point someone toward a free clinic. A lot of people who are less housed don’t know where to go, how to get insurance, or what resources are even available. Sometimes they just need someone to advocate for them.” That stayed with me too, the idea that something as simple as knowledge—something I might take for granted—could actually be a form of care.

I also couldn’t stop thinking about the food. Something as simple as a tortilla, some lettuce, and refried beans. It didn’t feel like enough, not for a grown person trying to get through a day, and it made me think about how there are still gaps, not just in presence but in resources, in funding, in what people are able to give.

I don’t know yet if I’ll volunteer there again. But I do know that places like Peace House matter. They matter because they offer something steady in the middle of instability, a place to sit, to eat, to charge a phone, to be seen, even briefly. And I think there are more ways to contribute than most people realize. Not everyone knows how to cut hair—I don’t—but maybe someone can trim nails, or recognize an infection, or share information about a clinic, or help someone understand how to get insurance. Those are not small things. If anything, this experience made me realize that giving back doesn’t always look like a big, obvious act. Sometimes it looks like noticing what you already know and offering it to someone who needs it. And maybe the city doesn’t just need more places like this, maybe it needs more people willing to see that they already have something to give.