Location: Breaking Bread Ministries/LaSalle Street Church
Date: Wednesday, April 01, 2015; 5:45-8:15 pm
Marianne wrote to a few of us earlier in the afternoon
saying that she would be unable to attend owing to work and asked if one of us
could take the lead with the circle of information. That would not be a problem since all of us
were comfortable doing it, though I would once again miss her presence. I walked over and arrived to see young Hannah
greeting the volunteers as usual. After
putting my stuff in the closet and washing up I was ready to go.
 |
| Getting these wedges would not be easy |
Chef Dani was clearly in charge and in control of the
kitchen. I asked her for an assignment
and she said that I could help in cutting the ‘Honeydew
Melon’. Oh boy! I with a knife
cutting a melon is not a good combination, considering my knife-skills…or
rather the lack of them. She showed me
how to cut the melon in half, take out the seeds using a spoon, and then slice
into wedges; which was all good in theory.
She asked if I ate fruit and I said that I mostly drank it, at which she
gave me a high-five. There were 2 cases of
the fruit and I was underway. However,
as I started cutting the wedges, each was of a different thickness, especially as
I got to the end, where I left the slice thick, since I was concerned about
cutting it without causing an accident. After observing this, Chef Dani said that she would get someone to help me and
so she did. Another volunteer joined me
and I told her about my cutting issues.
She said that she would help and also showed me a different way of cutting,
by placing the melon flat. The only
problem was that this would not give us the nice wedge that we needed, not that
I was doing much in terms of that anyways!
We went through one case and asked Chef Dani if that was enough, and thankfully
she said yes. These wedges constituted
our fruit salad for the evening and were distributed by other volunteers into
18 bowls. Besides this we had normal
salad, breakfast burrito, green beans and chocolate croissants.
Joe, who had also been on Marianne’s email this afternoon,
asked if I wanted to do the volunteer talk, to which I agreed. He handed me a cheat sheet of everything that
Marianne usually says and I looked at it while the other volunteers put the
finishing touches to the meal. There
were things on it like how to tell volunteers about individual comfort level,
not to give guests money, not to look after their belongings, assign duties and
then finally pray. Chef Dani asked if I
could help load some things from a freezer shelf onto a cart. I said that I would, as long as someone holds
the door of the freezer because I had seen enough movies of people being locked
in! With the help of Joe, we got things loaded and then it was time to wait and
so I chatted with Hannah about her upcoming spring break.
To ensure that we stayed on track, Chef Dani was also
chipping in and helping with all of the activities. In this regard, she is very different from Keith, more hands
on and more of a doer. Finally, just
before 7 pm, she got everyone together and said that Hannah would give the
volunteer orientation talk. I was happy
to hand Hannah the cheat sheet and she did a fantastic job. It’s amazing how much she has grown in
confidence since I first met her and how young she still is. I volunteered to help plate, and we all went
out into the main dining area. After the
salads and the juice had been served, I joined Joe and couple of other
volunteers in plating; my job being to put the burrito as well as the green
beans & peas on the plate, which was followed by Joe putting the green
peppers and black bean gravy on top of it and the croissant on the side. As we were doing this, the music was on in
the background and we were having some solid singing effort by some of our
guests.
We did not have many people today and 50 plates were all it
took. Then I stood by and counted as
guests came in for seconds. Chef Dani joined me and she has a great personality
as she chats with the guests in the line.
Clean-up was rapid and a girl in a wheelchair - a ‘Moody Bible’ volunteer - asked how she could help. I asked her to gather the floral type
arrangements that we place on the tables and soon she had all them in front of
me. I mentioned to her that it felt like
I was a speaker on a podium following a felicitation. Yeah, I am a riot. There were 4 first time volunteers here this
evening and I asked them to wait so I could do some “reflection”. They were all
from same company and had heard of this place through their employer. It seems that they had a good time and I
encouraged them to come back. Chef Dani’s
mom had been visiting tonight and I asked if Dani cooks at home. Her mom said no and laughed, saying that she
had to come here to taste her daughter’s cooking.
It was time to leave and I told Hannah that she had done a great job,
and said to her not to grow up so too fast and enjoy every day of her school
life.
No comments:
Post a Comment