Every quarter the church volunteers at a soup kitchen night held at Sacred Heart Catholic Church in West Colorado Springs. We buy about 57lbs of chicken to fry up, potato mini wedges, salad, fruit cocktail, rolls and fresh fruit. In the past, Gary has been around to wrangle Mia and her little friend, Grace, while we cook and set up. I was debating on whether to stay or not and decided to bring a few things to occupy her, just to give it a shot. She behaved very nicely and we only had one event that required time out. She helped clean up and put chairs away and stayed in her little corner of the kitchen for the most part. I'm proud of her! We always feed about a hundred people, more in the winter time. Unfortunately there has been an increase in the homeless population, a lot of people are literally living in their cars and roll up to eat then roll off to sleep.
It's such a humbling experience, because you can't help but catch yourself trying to remove from the situation, the possibility that that could be you one day. You can tell when someone is new to the lifestyle, they won't make eye contact, their clothes haven't been worn out yet and they almost seem ashamed to accept the plate.
No comments:
Post a Comment