"On the morning of October 21st, nearly 1,000 students, faculty and staff from the Johns Hopkins community set out to serve Baltimore City during the annual President’s Day of Service. RUF was able to sponsor a team of twelve this year and after a delicious home-cooked breakfast at Lauren’s, we checked in at the Rec Center (and got free tshirts!) for the opening rally.

Our site for the day was the Jenkins Senior Living Community, an assisted living facility in southwest
Baltimore that serves nearly 400 low to moderate income seniors. We were tasked with gardening,
painting the residents’ nails, playing bingo and painting pumpkins with them; all activities that were
right up our alley!

As team leader, I was lucky enough to be able to bounce around between the different stations and
it was tons of fun to get to meet all of the residents. I heard lots of stories about grandchildren, past
travels and “the way things used to be,” and all of the ladies were so sweet and so grateful to see us
there. But most of all I think they were just grateful that we took the time to talk with them.

We finished up our afternoon with an impromptu concert of familiar Christian songs (with Kendal
accompanying us on the piano from memory!) and then after a few last rounds of bingo, we loaded up
and headed back to Hopkins. I think I speak for everyone when I say the afternoon was a great success
and a wonderful time was had by all! I can’t think of a better way to spend an afternoon than in service
of our community and in fellowship with one another. We look forward to serving with PDOS again next year!"

-Brittany Ashe (our PDOS project coordinator)