A group of teenagers and young adults from a Christian youth group spent a month handing out food and locally donated clothing to homeless people in West Coast cities.

Adults Albert and Lori Giddings led Infinite Life Youth group members Rebekah Green, Caleb Anderson, Jessie Bourdon, Neil Little, Rachel Furman, Polly Bryant, Karissa Land, Jess Giddings, Matthew Green, and Andrew Harris on the trip.

The purpose was to “walk the walk,” so to speak. “Calling yourself a Christian today can mean so many things. Instead of just talking about things…let’s live it. Go beyond the talk. That’s what this trip was about,” Al Giddings said.

The group traveled nearly 10,000 miles in 26 days, leaving in mid-July.

The youth group’s idea for the trip occurred about three years ago. “We thought, ‘Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could go on a road trip and see just how big God’s world is,’” Al said. This year, everything fell into place.

Giddings acquired a 30-year-old tour bus from Seattle. The group also held a clothing drive, collecting 20 boxes. “People weren’t just cleaning out their closets to get rid of stuff,” Al said. “People bought clothes to donate.”

Memorable trip moments included Furman’s gift of a coat Giddings described as a “beautiful jacket” bringing tears to the eyes of a homeless woman in San Francisco.

The group volunteered mainly in San Francisco and Salem, Ore., staying about a week in each city. In San Francisco, they stayed with a mission organization in the Tenderloin district, witnessing scenes like addicts shooting up and people sleeping on streets. On Skid Row, they handed out cups of hot chocolate.

Youths made two bagged lunches every morning – one for themselves and one for a homeless person. They’d find someone, walk over, introduce themselves, and ask if they could eat together.

Some wanted nothing to do with the youths. Others asked, “Where do you want me to start?”

Students got to know homeless people personally, Giddings said. It made the Haines youths “light up” when a homeless person they talked to the day before remembered their name, and asked to talk to them again.

“The point was to engage. These people that you’re going to see as homeless…this person is somebody’s son or daughter. They’re as precious as any of you. They’re just homeless,” he said.

Giddings recalled one man saying, “’I’ve been looking for you guys all morning.’ He was hungry and wanted clothes.”

“San Francisco was the most impactful of the three weeks,” said student Rebekah Green. “It allowed us to see a little bigger slice of the world than we are exposed to in Haines.”

Green said that the proximity of the poor areas to more well-off neighborhoods stood out to her. “Just blocks away from the Tenderloin were dozens of stores with thousands of people going in and out every day…just blocks away there was a collection of streets that smelled of urine and were littered with sheets of cardboard that had been carefully laid out, each piece marking off someone’s only square of space in the world.”

The group worked in a soup kitchen, where they helped served lunch to 780 people in one day.

They also took a “homeless plunge.” For about 24 hours, they were to not change their clothes, shower, or have money. They slept on the floor with no blankets, mattresses, or pillows. To eat, they stood in line at the soup kitchen. “We stood in line with others who have to do that every day. It was an eye opener,” Giddings said.

Student Neil Little said the trip helped offset some of the selfish ways of thinking that have been “hammered” into his brain for years. “That trip brought out the selflessness in every single person (in the group),” he said.

“I got to see the world from there. Not how you see it from here, a small town in Alaska…I got to hear about the world from their perspective.”

In Salem, the group learned how to share the gospel and sat through teachings about understanding others’ needs, Giddings said. Again they went out to the streets and interacted with people.

The group then headed to Los Angeles, volunteering at a rescue mission on Skid Row. cooking and distributing over 600 meals, scrubbing floors and the refrigerator, and sorting donated food. They also walked around the inner city streets.