Adventures In Higher Education!

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One of the requirements for my social work class is to volunteer for fifteen hours. Well, I found that a touch amusing, because even during my last twenty-four months of autoimmune convalescence doom, I still have managed to knock out at least that many volunteering hours every week.

That sorta is a given when your hubs runs a non-profit lol!

Anyway, I was excited about the requirement, as I want to get back to doing what I love, which is serving my community where I am needed. And if it involves anything to do with food, even better.

So, a week ago I contacted a lady I met quite a few years ago while working at the library. If you go back into my blog archives, you will find more than a few posts about me and Miss M, the youth librarian. We got up to all sorts of program shenanigans together, and one of them was doing summer story time in the city park.

It was there that I met the director of Cup of Grace, a local non-profit that exists to serve the basic needs of the community. Amy and her fellow volunteers showed up to story time every week with free lunches for any kiddo who wanted them. I thought it was cool.

So, when the volunteer requirement was lined out in my Social Work course syllabus, my brain screeched Cup of Grace and one phone call later, I was good to go.

Fond memories of my work with Cup of Grace were on my mind as I rolled through the mud puddle laden parking lot and parked in front of COG's building. Little did I know what awaited me beyond one of the building's many teal doors.

When you walk into the main door to Cup of Grace's big yellow steel building, your eyes are met with a cozy dining room, the kitchen, the food bank, and the array that is serving the public needs in action. A local lady and her service dog were in one corner measuring out brown sugar into smaller bags to go into the food bank. Another lady was operating the clothes closet, and another lady was in the kitchen, looking harried.

Lisa, the volunteer coordinator for that day had no idea I was coming in.

Which honestly, isn't that unusual for me to experience, especially in volunteer situations. As a lifelong volunteer, I have learned that most organizations are ran by a handful of very dedicated, over-worked people.

I quickly reassured Lisa that I wasn't there to add to her already upended day, for it was very much chaos in her world at that moment. Some of her main volunteers were out due to surgery and sickness. She was having to cook some of the community meal there, and try to oversee everything else, all on very little sleep and with her arthritis flaring up.

So, I jumped in and started cooking. And doing dishes.

Before my shift was over I had scrubbed and mopped the kitchen, the dining room, and helped prep the extra tater tot casserole that was needed for the night.

I also got to do all that work with a dear intellectually disabled friend (who calls me her family). I just love S, she has this sweet, high-pitched voice and is the most helpful person in the world. If half the world had as sweet a spirit as her, things would be bright indeed.

Serving others brings me so much joy, especially when that service brings a bit of reprieve to those who do so much with so little, whether that be energy or items.

Every Tuesday Cup of Grace serves a community meal. It's quite an operation in and of itself. That night the fire department was supposed to come in and do all the serving and I could tell that, on top of all the volunteer staffing issues, was causing Lisa to be a bit frazzled. So my heart swelled a bit when we got the first phase of the work done and she was able to sit down.

As I walked out of the kitchen I saw an elderly man sitting with Lisa, regaling her with talk. There are more than a few people on this planet that like the sound of their own voice. There are also a lot of people who are just plain lonely. Lisa was being held hostage by one of them.

As an experienced volunteer, you could tell she could hold her own any day, but you could also see that she was just plain...tired.

The older man must have picked up on that, because he then zeroed in on me.

While I wiped down the serving area, he regaled me with his mathematical prowess, told me where he studied, and remarked that he knew me from somewhere. I replied cordially that I did work at the library for almost a decade and maybe he had saw me there.

Indeed he had.

He then began to verbally show off even more and asked me if I knew what the, Key to dealing with women was?

I shook my head and held his eye, one of my eyebrows whimsically arching in challenge.

"Well, you just agree with them and then do what you want," he quipped and let out a very self-satisfied guffaw.

Now usually, I just smile and move along. Reacting is usually what attention vampires want. However, I was feeling a bit fiesty and before you could say German chocolate cake I responded,

"Oh, so you excel at obstruction through obstinance.

Smiling, I walked away. The smile grew as the sound of Lisa's delighted chuckles flitted through my ears.

Yep, it is definitely time for me to get back out into the community.

And it is on that note that I find myself anticipating this Tuesday's dinner serving shift, who knows what might happen?😉

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And as most of the time, all of the images in this post were taken on the author's still recovering from being abandoned in a cubby in the testing center iPhone.

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