Volunteers wrap
to give Covenant House residents that special Christmas feeling.
Lee Medina said she got caught up with gangs and drugs as a teenager in Puerto Rico.
She ran away from home on multiple occasions and lived on the street.
But the 22-year-old has since discovered she has a talent for cooking, which she uses to feed residents of the Covenant House Florida charity in Orlando.
Medina on Saturday helped feed a team of about three dozen volunteers wrapping Christmas gifts for Covenant House residents.
It’s a yearly event for the facility, which serves about 80 homeless youths.
She said working in the kitchen helped her, for the first time, learn how to trust others and be a part of a team.
“Growing up on the streets, you don’t learn how to be a team player,” she said. “You can’t trust nobody. You can’t even trust the person you put your head down next to at night because you don’t know if you’ll wake up the next day.”
Medina was once one of the children who received the wrapped gifts, which can include toothbrushes, shampoo and clothing.
“It’s hard when you know what they are going through,” she said. “But you can relate to them. It’s worth it to try to make their day because you’ll never know if they will come back to us.”
The recipients sometimes break into tears because they’re not used to getting presents, said Maria Shorkey, the facility’s associate executive director.
Shorkey, who helped coordinate the 33 volunteers Saturday, said the gifts help the children feel normal for a day.
“They have hardly ever had anything new,” she said. “It might be just a hooded sweatshirt, but now it’s their hooded sweatshirt.”
The services provided by Covenant House include teen parenting education, transportation for job interviews and a ministry.
The home can serve as an example to some families of other people’s struggles, said Krista Justice of Orlando, who brought her children to the volunteer event.
“They get to see how other kids live,” Justice said. “They can see what the true meaning of the season is.”
The annual family outing has also changed how Justice’s children shop, she said.
When they are at a store, the kids – 13 and 15 years old – pick out things to bring to the Covenant House wrapping party.
“It makes them a lot more thankful for what they have,” she said.
Covenant House helped Medina earn her GED diploma, short for General Educational Development.
It also helped her take culinary courses, but the final triggered Medina’s anxiety, she said.
To pass the course, she had to cook a meal in front of other people.
“Growing up around violence, I didn’t know how to be loving or caring,” she said. “This place helps you build your character and build yourself up.”