Staff Spotlight: Tyler Hwang
Our very own staff member, Tyler Hwang, wrote a beautiful blog post about his journey to the Ballard Food Bank, the importance of our work, and getting accepted to Georgetown University's School of Medicine.
Congrats Tyler! We're so proud of you.
A year between college graduation and medical school matriculation can be an important time for premed students. It is a window during which we can gain meaningful experiences and strengthen our application profile. At the start of 2020, I strongly considered pursuing a medical scribing role during my gap year and application cycle. The position is very common among premed individuals, a great opportunity to gain invaluable clinical experience and further demonstrate a commitment to medicine. It wasn’t until the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic became less abstract and more concrete that I began to reevaluate those preliminary plans. Every day, I would hear stories of families suffering tragic losses and how the economic downturn had devastated American working life. I had an incredible opportunity to help and realized that I couldn’t stand on the sidelines in the face of this growing crisis. For those reasons, I felt a personal and moral obligation to contribute to the many efforts intended to combat the widespread fallout that the pandemic had incurred.
Following graduation from college last May, I volunteered at the Washington D.C. location of World Central Kitchen during the summer. WCK is an organization that focuses on providing food relief in response to global natural disasters. In 2020, they expanded their outreach to incorporate emergency support to communities affected by Covid-19 as well. My location was preparing up to 5000 reheatable meals daily for distribution and it was a truly rewarding experience to be able to take part in WCK’s mission. With the organization, I gained a deeper understanding of the influence food support can have in empowering the underserved. WCK’s endeavors in the capital concluded at the end of the summer, but I was eager to continue engaging in critical anti-hunger work longitudinally. The pandemic was still an ongoing plight that many individuals and families were struggling to navigate. At the beginning of August, I discovered an AmeriCorps opportunity that was dedicated to facilitating food access to Seattle’s many vulnerable communities exacerbated by the pandemic. Hunger in the greater Seattle area had tripled since the outbreak and cycles of poverty had only deepened. Prepared to continue bridging the widening gap between food availability and need, I moved to the region only one month later.
My AmeriCorps program supervisor stationed me at Ballard Food Bank when I arrived in Seattle and it was one of the best things that has ever happened to me. From the moment I first arrived, I immediately noticed the enthusiasm and passion displayed by staff and volunteers. Not only was each and every individual committed to ensuring food access to a diverse range of clientele, but each was also dedicated to building an inclusive and collaborative environment for everyone involved. My roles with the food bank have ranged from preparing no-cook meals to personally delivering individualized groceries to client residences. Each task has supplied me with a new perspective and appreciation for food relief operations, and have crystallized just how important it is for me to undertake this avenue of work. Above all, engaging with clients on an interpersonal level has been the most enriching experience. Many clients we work with are individuals in transient living conditions, unsure about where and when their next meal is. Other clients were once financially stable but face unemployment and uncertainty amidst the pandemic. “I never thought I would be in this situation” is a phrase that I’ve heard far too frequently and one that evokes feelings of humility and empathetic consideration. For me, it has been as much of a responsibility to demonstrate compassion towards every client as it has been to ensure food availability. The people I’ve worked with have offered many sobering stories yet have displayed tremendous resiliency. Those interactions have demonstrated just how paramount it is to go beyond the call of duty for our clients - to foster a sense of community and forge connections that render our own individual differences irrelevant.
A few weeks ago I was incredibly honored to be accepted to the Georgetown University School of Medicine Class of 2025. The school was my dream program and to be able to transform that once distant prospect into a future reality still feels ethereal. At the epicenter of Georgetown’s clinical philosophy is cura personalis - care for the whole person. This ethos transcends medicine and can be instilled across all acts of social service. Applying a holistic lens to my work has been an endeavor I’ve tried to uphold throughout my experience at Ballard Food Bank. In a time when anyone may need food, it’s critical to treat everyone with dignity and respect - to treat the people we serve as not just clients, but as humans too. At Georgetown, I hope to continue making population health impacts in a medical program that doesn’t draw a line between clinical competency and advocacy for the unheard. Right now, especially, that is more important than ever before.
-Tyler Hwang
