When most people think of volunteering, the first thing that comes to their mind is a soup kitchen. I had never volunteered at one before last Monday. The image I had in my head was completely different from the actual environment.
All Souls Church treats the entire experience like a nice restaurant. Guests are seated at tables with tablecloths. They are served coffee, tea, soup, salad, a main course, and dessert. The meal served that night was ginger chicken, brown rice, and steamed fresh vegetables(the food looked very good and the guests seemed quite satisfied). I spent my time serving coffee, the main course, and helping clean everything up.
The most amazing part of the experience were the guests(250 of them). I can honestly say that I have never been around a more grateful, polite, friendly group of people. Everyone was so happy to have a warm place for a few hours, a hot meal, and nice people to converse with. I struck up a conversation with a man that had spare computer parts. He found a broken laptop and salvaged the ram, and wireless chip. He was so intelligent, engaging and gave me a detailed description of the different types of ram and how he was going to utilize the parts.
If more people volunteered at a similar place, I really believe it could make a difference in the world. It makes you truly appreciate what you have and opens your eyes to the everyday things you take for granted. If these people, who have been through so much and fallen on hard times, can be so happy and grateful…why can’t you?
30deeds 