volunteering
Last night, I went with my good friend Holly to volunteer making and serving dinner to some folks in a group home for people with HIV and their staff person. Wednesday, we grocery-shopped and cooked a lovely baked ziti dish and bought some garlic bread, salad, strawberries and sorbet to serve. We bought it to a cute little home in South Mpls and heated it up, then ate dinner with the residents of the home.
It was really awesome and nice, but I can't help but think that we were a little naive. We cooked a dish without meat in it, not even really thinking about it, and that caused quite a stir. "There's no meat? Hm. Well, this is pretty good... for not having meat in it." One person looked at us a little suspiciously. "You aren't...." She left it hanging. "Vegetarians?" Holly said. "No, we're not." Everyone looked relieved. We also made an error by not buying pop to bring with, instead opting to serve ice water and juice and obviously disappointing a bit. Sorbet was a foreign food to all. Even "ziti" made everyone a little suspicious at first. Luckily, everyone scarfed down hearty portions, commented on how good it was, and thanked us very graciously. It was really nice to just sit around and gab to some different folks too, and felt good to have cooked a great meal for strangers and have it be well-received.
One cool thing is that Holly's work, a law firm, reimbursed us up to $100 for the food (we only used about half of that). We are planning on doing this again next month and getting the food ourselves. While we were in the kitchen, one lady was talking to us about how awesome it was one time when a staff person brought in chicken wings and grilled them. I guessed that they must grill a lot, with such a nice and seemingly easy-to-use grill on their porch. Wistfully, she told us no, they almost never grill. It really makes me want to buy a load of brats and some BBQ fixins and bring them over and have a cook-out.
Holly's law firm is super into volunteering, and we both plan to get involved at least once a month (ideally) in other opportunities. I would like to volunteer more often, but places make is surprisingly hard sometimes (I'm not blaming - often it's out of necessity). I used to be an intern and then a volunteer at Chrysalis, a women's resource center, but that required a week-long training and several 4-hour shifts a month doing incredibly grueling phone work and in-person counseling. Many places have a huge orientation process and require a large time commitment. I want to get involved with more places that allow for a focused, short-term stint, and hopefully Holly's job will help us both do that.
It was really awesome and nice, but I can't help but think that we were a little naive. We cooked a dish without meat in it, not even really thinking about it, and that caused quite a stir. "There's no meat? Hm. Well, this is pretty good... for not having meat in it." One person looked at us a little suspiciously. "You aren't...." She left it hanging. "Vegetarians?" Holly said. "No, we're not." Everyone looked relieved. We also made an error by not buying pop to bring with, instead opting to serve ice water and juice and obviously disappointing a bit. Sorbet was a foreign food to all. Even "ziti" made everyone a little suspicious at first. Luckily, everyone scarfed down hearty portions, commented on how good it was, and thanked us very graciously. It was really nice to just sit around and gab to some different folks too, and felt good to have cooked a great meal for strangers and have it be well-received.
One cool thing is that Holly's work, a law firm, reimbursed us up to $100 for the food (we only used about half of that). We are planning on doing this again next month and getting the food ourselves. While we were in the kitchen, one lady was talking to us about how awesome it was one time when a staff person brought in chicken wings and grilled them. I guessed that they must grill a lot, with such a nice and seemingly easy-to-use grill on their porch. Wistfully, she told us no, they almost never grill. It really makes me want to buy a load of brats and some BBQ fixins and bring them over and have a cook-out.
Holly's law firm is super into volunteering, and we both plan to get involved at least once a month (ideally) in other opportunities. I would like to volunteer more often, but places make is surprisingly hard sometimes (I'm not blaming - often it's out of necessity). I used to be an intern and then a volunteer at Chrysalis, a women's resource center, but that required a week-long training and several 4-hour shifts a month doing incredibly grueling phone work and in-person counseling. Many places have a huge orientation process and require a large time commitment. I want to get involved with more places that allow for a focused, short-term stint, and hopefully Holly's job will help us both do that.