Saturday was my very first day serving for the dinner service of the volunteer program. When I was younger my dad had me and my siblings serve the homeless around Christmas time, and it was very similar. At the time I was much younger, but I still remembered how things went. I arrived and they sent me to my place to be prepared for the people who were about to arrive. They let me know that they wanted us, the servers, to interact with those who showed up. They said that some might not want to talk, so that we shouldn't have try to force it. Keeping a warm smile on our face was the "way to go". When the people began to arrive I was really nervous because I wasn't sure what to expect with them. Not trying to come off as a stuck up person, but in a way I get scared because I don't know the way all these people work. My job was to serve their plates with food. Most of them seemed really happy, so they would repeatedly say thank you and "God bless you", which made me really happy. Once they received their food we had to go around making sure they had water or coffee in their cup, and if they didn't then it was our job to refill them. When it was time for them to leave, I felt sadness because I knew that all the people leaving were leaving to a place they couldn't call home. I assume all volunteers feel this way the first couple of times, but I didn't think it'd feel that sad. I should start thinking about it in the way that I'm glad they managed to get some food into their stomach, rather than stay starving that night because we don't know when their last meal was or when their next meal will be. At the end of the day I was exhausted and proud of myself.
4/12/2014
Time: 5 hours
Total time: 11 hours
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