Thursday, July 29, 2010

Serving at the Mission

Hello everyone. Last night I went to help at the Open Door Mission. I have always wanted to volunteer do something like this. Well the time had come and my hubby was home to watch the kiddos. So I signed up on Sunday. I didn't really know what to expect. I just knew that this was something I needed to do. So I met everyone at the Wegmans parking lot and we carpooled to downtown Rochester. The others that went were trying to give me some pointers on what to expect. That helped tremendously, I just wished they had told me prior to dress lightly. ;) Anyway, we walked in and there was about 74 men there. The first part of the night while the men were gathering we started to prepare the salad. It was nice to visit with the other volunteers and get ourselves ready to serve. It was a very small kitchen for all of us in it. We had very few good utensils to cut with and only 1 big cutting board and 1 very small one. We sadly had to go through a bunch of older veggies. Cut out the bad parts and try to use what we could. Lettuce was the worst part. Luckily it turned out to be a very decent looking salad. Then they started the sermon and a few hymns. The sermon was good. The songs were just very old hymns that we used to sing back in the day. One thing I wish is that they had more upbeat, ALIVE, music there. I was told that it is the same music every time we volunteer, which is once a month. During the sermon we had to prepare the food and get ready to serve. Now, one criteria is that they must be sitting down to get served. Otherwise, I am told, they will come and just stuff it in there pockets. That really got me thinking about how much I take food for granted. So they rushed to get there seats, Rushed..... We started serving them the salad and their drink of bottled Pepsi. While they were eating that we started getting their dinner on the plates to pass out. It consisted of ziti with meatballs, collard greens, a little bit of squash. Once they were done we called for seconds. Some had containers that we could put the seconds into. There was no desserts for them that night.
This was a bittersweet experience for me. I felt that at least there are some organizations that will help our neighbors who are hungry. There are people out there who want to help too. It felt nice. It wasn't so nice to see how hungry they were. I just wish there was more that we could do. It is hard to think that alot of people help out children in another country, which is an awesome thing to do, but forget the ones here. Right in front of us. Our friends, our neighbors needing help. I also learned that when I don't have that one thing I am craving for it is no big deal. We don't need crazy snacks around our kitchen. The basics are ok. My hope is to bring my daughter after a while to see what it is like. To teach her that other people go through hard times, have less and just need a kind smile. This is a long post. I just needed to get this off my chest. Thanks for lending your ears......

3 comments:

  1. Kim- They were blessed to have you serving them and you are a wonderful person for taking the time to volunteer. I enjoyed reading about it in your post. Thanks for sharing!
    Laura Politz-Maloney

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  2. Thank you Laura. I felt like we all walked away with something good. Thanks for reading my blog.

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  3. :) No matter how many times I have been able to lend a helping hand I always come away from it feeling alive, thnful and more than anything love for my fellow man. When Katie gets old enough she wants to help to but until then she loves to hear my stories of what went on. Keep up the good work Kim. You are a blessing to us all.

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