#theVIPExperience Post #10: Shannon Cunningham

                  After every single shift, I understand something more about the population served at Crossroad Health Center in Over-the-Rhine in Cincinnati. I initially found interest in and applied to the volunteer internship program because I was drawn to the intersection between my major revolving around politics and natural sciences/premed. Despite my privilege growing up in a middle class suburban family, I recognized systemic poverty from a young age as an issue affecting a larger population that many politicians, corporations, and economically well off people fail to acknowledge.

At no older than eight years old, I remember walking around the streets of Chicago with my family confused and frustrated as to why so many of my fellow humans did not have basic amenities and resources life calls for. Throughout my upbringing, experiences, and education, I came to firmly believe that regardless of race, religion, ethnicity, language, gender, sexual orientation, and any other marginalized group, every single individual deserves necessities including food, housing, safety, and health care. However, all too often these basic needs are not met. According to CityLink Center, here in Cincinnati in 2015 30.9% of Cincinnati residents live in poverty or over 86,000 people, which is nearly double the national poverty rate and Ohio poverty rate. In other words, one in three Cincinnatians live below the poverty line. In 2012, Cincinnati had the second highest child poverty rate in the nation with a little more than half of all Cincinnati children living in poverty. In 2011, the Center for Disease Control (CDC) reported, Hamilton County experienced the fifth highest infant mortality rate and the highest rate for African Americans in the country. Causes of poverty are complex as they often are engrained into the functions of society; however, feeding, clothing, and performing healthcare shouldn’t be.

As important as they are, knowing all the facts in figures out there doesn’t matter unless experiences are had to cultivate feelings and thoughts of empathy. My experience at Crossroad Health Center has done just that. Recognizing the significance of a little task or small interaction during our work as VIP’s, can be difficult in the moment. But when I hear the change in tone of patients’ voices on the phone lighten with relief when they hear an appointment was scheduled or see smiles on patients’ faces when they shake your hand after speaking with them in office about their referrals, I remember I am improving the life of a fellow human. Simply, those interactions matter the most.

-- Shannon Cunningham