It was a cold winter day in saint paul Minnesota when 23-year-old Alison Waid a newly licensed social worker. Was filling in for an absent coworker, that was on a trip to Mexico. A client came into Alison’s office and introduced herself as Angelika. The client asked Alison what was the plan for her, and, after doing some digging and talking to her coworkers. Alison was informed about this clients impending homelessness.

Alison is a social worker and was working in a transitional housing agency in Saint Paul, Minnesota. On  November sixteenth of 2016, Alison came in contact with a client that was about to become homeless in the dead of a Minnesota winter.

“What struck me most about her was how hopeful she always was. She was never scared and she was always so thankful for our interactions,.” Waid said.

Alison’s journey to social work

Alison grew up living next to a social worker, who she really looked up to in a lot of ways. As Alison went to high school she took a few social worker 101 classes.

“I took a social worker 101 class and just really felt like I had found my path and I really identified with my classmates and the course material. I just realized all the things you can do in social work and was kinda sold at that point,” Waid explained.

Alison loves how she can use her knowledge to help other people and see that she is making an impact on people’s lives. She likes the fact that you get to listen and make connections with other people, that she comes in contact with.

“I’m taking things that are kind of inherent gifts to me, and I’m not just winging it. Like I’m using theory and education and the impact that can have on other human beings I just thought was really impactful and powerful,” Waid said.

The most memorable moment

One of Alison’s most impactful moment is a time when she was filling in for another social worker who was on vacation to Mexico for a week or two. It was November sixteenth of the year 2016, Alison was sitting down in her office catching up on some paperwork. When a woman came into Alison’s office sat down on the brown cloth and plastic chairs and introduced herself as Angelika; and asked if she knew what’s the plan for her.  So Alison did some digging and talked to her other coworkers, and found out that Angelika was facing impending homelessness. And on top of that Angelika was not a U.S. citizen, which made a lot of things harder.

Something in Alison’s brain told her that this can’t happen and shouldn’t happen to Angelika. Angelika was fairly new to the states and was going to end up facing homelessness either back in her country or here in Minnesota. Angelika didn’t have much family, and what little she did have lived in Detroit.

“I just really felt that there was kind of an injustice to it, that this person wouldn’t mentally wouldn’t farewell facing homelessness for the first time. There was something in me that said that this isn’t right, this can’t happen,” Waid said.

Alison started to ask around to homeless shelters, and also to churches. She was having no luck and was getting passed around from church to church to church. At some point Alison could not do anything else, she called every church she could find and all of the homeless shelters. It was a holiday weekend so all Alison could do is just wait.

“I spent hours upon hours, just calling different churches in the community I started with kind of her like ethnic group and calling churches that related to that. And I just called different agencies and was really trying to see what we could do for this person,” Waid said.

The work paid off

After the holiday weekend, Alison was eager to see how Angelika was doing and see if any of the churches called her office or will end up calling her office. Alison listened to her voicemails but nothing on Angelika. But about halfway through Alison’s work day one of the church’s called and said that they would take Angelika and that they would be sending her to Detroit here her family is. The church members wanted to come and meet Angelika, and figure some things out for her.

“One these churches came and met her and there was a community of church members, that eventually pooled their money together and got her on a bus to Detroit where she did have family and she was able to work like for cash and housing there,” Alison explained.

Alison hopes that even people whose profession is not in helping people, that they can see how other people need help too and you can just do it out of the kindness of their heart.

“I think in general, I guess I would hope that the average person could take a story like this and that like you don’t have to be somebody who’s trained in the field and has gone through all the school, to make a difference,” Waid said.

The church that helped Angelika was not partnered with the social workers, they did it out of the kindness of their heart. They took their own time and money to help one person.

“On a small scale, on a big scale people have the opportunity to do really cool things for other human beings all the time,” Waid said.

Name, dates, and locations have been changed for privacy purposes.