Location: Breaking Bread Ministries/LaSalle Street Church
Date: Wednesday, December 04, 2013; 5:45-9:00 pm
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| Wonder why they had this on display? |
Besides death and taxes, one of
the almost guarantees in life is Thomas from Chicago Cares asking me to lead
this project. Perhaps I should consider
being a permanent leader for this one. I
got the sign-in sheet and as has been my custom, in the afternoon I sent a welcome email to
everyone. I walked over to the site and as I entered, I saw a table with ‘Mardi Gras’
paraphernalia on it; like masks etc.
This was a bit perplexing and I wondered if we were going to have New
Orleans inspired cuisine this evening.
Keith was giving orders in the kitchen to some of the volunteers and he
had forgotten my name again. I said to
him that its only been 10 months since I have been coming here, to which he
responded that he remembers my face, just not my name. Well, I guess that’s fair.
Although he wanted me to go help
in the clothing room, I said that I had to wait for my volunteers and they
arrived soon enough – Jenny, Alexia and Alexis.
I took them to the clothing room and then came back to see how I could
help in the kitchen. I joined Hannah, who
is in 8th grade and whom I have seen every single time I have come
here. Kudos to her for doing this, for
when I was in 8th grade; I had not even heard about volunteering,
let alone participate in it. She was on
desserts and that’s one thing we had plenty of this evening. Keith asked if I could work with her and so
for the next several minutes we piled up the 21 plates with huge cake pieces,
donuts, cookies and some other treats. Even
with our best efforts we were not even close to using up all of the cakes and
so went over to put the rest in the walk-in refrigerator. This posed another problem since there was no
space and so we had to stuff the cakes wherever we could find a spot. But I guess having a full refrigerator in a
place like this is a good thing and I would much rather have to make space
rather than walk into an empty one.
The salads were ready and the
desserts had been plated, meaning we had some free time prior to service. The
rest of the volunteers had returned back from the clothing room and I had an
opportunity to chat with them, not just the Chicago Cares ones, but also those
who were volunteering directly with LaSalle Street Church. They were paying rapt attention as I told
them about this place and it certainly appeared that they had identified me as
one of the leaders. Also present was
Stephanie, who is a staff member at ‘Esperanza’,
an organization I have volunteered for through One Brick. We chatted about some of their events, just
as Keith called everyone to attention.
It was time for his speech.
He started by reminding
everyone about the philosophy of "giving, sharing, loving, caring" as well as "respect
and dignity" – something that I have heard several times, but it never gets
old. Today he was picking on Hannah,
often calling on her to provide these key words. Marianne was missing and he said that she had
fallen down the stairs and was in physical therapy. This was a shame since I enjoy her company on
these projects. He said that he had
received a text from her, where she had asked him to rely on a volunteer called
Dana, and by the look on her face, this was news to Dana! Keith assigned duties, and I would be
starting off by serving juice, along with a new volunteer. I told him how the guests would ask him for
refills before we were done serving everyone and how he was to respectfully
tell them that he would be back. We went
outside and saw a young man talking on the microphone about his challenging
experiences in life, and how he was trying to turn it around by putting himself
through school. He then started the
evening’s entertainment by singing along with another gentleman.
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| Tonight's main course |
The food was brought out and on
the menu tonight were chili, pasta and bread – definitely not New Orleans cuisine. I went around serving juice and it was great
to chat with some of the guests, including one gentleman who said that he was
planning to behave himself tonight by being ‘G-Rated’! We started serving food and like last time, I
took up Marianne’s duty of pointing at tables which were to be served next, and all the
volunteers took their cues from me. As usual, we were efficient and no sooner
had we finished serving, than many had already lined up for seconds. We finished that as well and then it was time
for clean-up. Once again, it pained me
to throw away most of the salad and they really need to rethink this 21 table
distribution. A lot of food got thrown
in garbage, including leftover bread – and lots of it. At least the dessert cakes, which we had put
out for seconds and people did not take with them, were returned to the
refrigerator.
I was keeping an eye on my
Chicago Cares volunteers and they were doing a terrific job. I assigned one of them to the “exciting” task of collecting salt &
pepper shakers, as well as the artificial flowers center pieces, while I took
to stacking and moving the chairs. I had
never operated the trolley that is used to push the stack of 10 chairs and it
was back-breaking work. By the time we
had finished clearing the floor, I was drenched in sweat and totally
exhausted. Even then, it had been a
satisfying night and while I was tired, it made me proud to be considered a
leader for this program, and someone who is a regular to be relied upon.
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