Allee
Well-known member
Due to logistics and geographical challenges, I couldn't spend today with my husband or either of my adult sons, DIL or grandson. I wrote this for them. Since I also abandoned you guys today I thought I'd post this here in case any of my extended family members are in the mood for story time. Sorry, I find it impossible to keep even the most trivial stories short.
This story is a bit off the beaten path, contains mild profanity and may not be your average Hallmark kind of Thanksgiving Tale.
I arrived at the Community Center at 5:45 am. You never really know what kind of day to expect when you volunteer, as long as you expect to work fast and hard, elbow to elbow with a busy kitchen full of strangers for about eight hours, the rest usually just happens. Volunteering in a rural area is a humbling experience, bigger cities can afford the fluff, cute name buttons with VOLUNTEER printed in big friendly letters, fliers and often gift cards for the volunteers, small towns use every penny to feed the hungry a plate of warm food and offer a new or gently used coat or blanket for the cold weather ahead.
Today wasn't cold but it was gloomy and rainy, this year we could have used a lot more extra hands. A few of us were able to look around, determine the work to be done in an insanely short few hours and delegate to the willing but inexperienced few that chose to donate their time instead of their money. Both kinds of donations are essential to pull off this kind of benefit. The local businesses are as generous as they can be with food and money donations. Warm bodies, willing to work are getting more scarce every year.
The local judges help out by ordering teens to do so many hours of community service to pay for their petty offenses. During the holiday season these young future criminals are ordered to help those less fortunate. The teens show up under duress and court order at the buttcrack of the holiday morning, equipped with a terrible attitude and a hideously ugly orange vest provided by the great state of Texas. The vests, the attitudes, the piercings, and the awful things they do to their hair identifies them for the rest of the volunteers. It lets us know to approach with caution (they may carry switchblades, you never know). It also lets us know who to order around to do the simple tasks the busier volunteers have no time for. Today we were very shorthanded and didn't have the luxury of allowing the wayward teens to smirk on the sidelines.
Today a very hostile young lady from our group of miscreants came in with the obvious intention of doing no more than taking up space in the small kitchen and imitating plymouth rock. I had other ideas, I put the brat in the walk-in freezer to reorganize the donated frozen food that will be used next month at the Christmas feast. Amazing how a few minutes in a freezer can improve the symptoms of teenage angst. The girl's name was Carry, by about 7:30 am Carry was ready to knife me and leave my body in the freezer. Character building is important for borderline personalities like Dear Carry's, I was trying to help and thought the freezer was the best place for her. I let her cool her heels for quite some time and she did a surprisingly good job of organizing a flock of frozen turkeys.
All kinds of people show up on Thanksgiving Day, the doors at the center open at 7:00 am and stay open until 1:30 in the afternoon. Hot coffee and pastries are served until 10:00 am. Today we had a truckload of decorated cupcakes supplied by a small bakery to go along with the other sugary treats.
The smell of a soup kitchen on a holiday is absolutely heavenly, there's nothing like it. Some folks bring their families and spend the whole day chatting with family members, friends and strangers. One such family consisted of a very tired looking, very young mom, a boy of about seven, a very elderly couple, possibly the woman's grandparents, and an absolutely delightful little girl with sparkling blue eyes, cotton candy curls, and a smile that, I kid you not, could melt ancient glaciers or the hearts of certain wayward teens. The little girl was maybe four, her name is Skyla, before our day ended most everyone in the building knew Skyla's name. Skyla had wayyy too many cupcakes and before the day had really started the child had a case of the zoomies that would make our dogs grin.
Skyla sprinted into the kitchen for the first time very early in the day, food preparation was in full swing. The kitchen was no place for a sugar fueled missile like little Skyla, she was an accident looking for a place to happen. I broke several rules by picking the tiny cherub up and asking her name, she told me with a mischievous twinkle in her eyes and asked if she could have my hair bonnet. I got her a bonnet and fashioned a makeshift fairy gown from two folded paper aprons. I broke another rule by summoning the now frostbitten Carry out of the freezer and handing Skyla to the young rebel. I thought blue lips and frosty lashes had actually improved Carry's appearance so I sent her on a personal mission into the quickly growing crowd in our dining room to locate Skyla's owners. When Carry returned she of course came straight to me for further instruction. I set her to stirring a huge vat of mashed potatoes so her face could thaw enough to perhaps produce a smile, I had decided Carry could occupy a place in the serving line later, her character obviously still needed improvement.
This year produced the biggest crowd of people needing to be fed that I have ever seen at this location. I reminded myself this is a small town in Texas and a lot of people show up for a free meal, not because they need to, but because it's free and they don't have to clean up the mess. I may have been wrong about that but I feel better believing it.
Skyla, the fairy princess in the paper gown showed up in the kitchen several more times, only to be escorted to her mom by an older, grumpier princess. Carry had actually smiled a couple of times, not at me really, but toward me.
As always, there were several culinary mishaps in the kitchen, a kettle of beans boiled over and resulted in flames and a minor burn.
A young woman, first time volunteer, while deboning roasted hens, lost her engagement ring in a tub full of stuffing so the whole batch was wasted, she did find her ring after mucking through the raw stuffing for a big part of her morning, no one had time to help. I'm guessing next time the woman will remember to lose the jewelry and wear gloves like the rest of us.
*continued due to word limit*
This story is a bit off the beaten path, contains mild profanity and may not be your average Hallmark kind of Thanksgiving Tale.
I arrived at the Community Center at 5:45 am. You never really know what kind of day to expect when you volunteer, as long as you expect to work fast and hard, elbow to elbow with a busy kitchen full of strangers for about eight hours, the rest usually just happens. Volunteering in a rural area is a humbling experience, bigger cities can afford the fluff, cute name buttons with VOLUNTEER printed in big friendly letters, fliers and often gift cards for the volunteers, small towns use every penny to feed the hungry a plate of warm food and offer a new or gently used coat or blanket for the cold weather ahead.
Today wasn't cold but it was gloomy and rainy, this year we could have used a lot more extra hands. A few of us were able to look around, determine the work to be done in an insanely short few hours and delegate to the willing but inexperienced few that chose to donate their time instead of their money. Both kinds of donations are essential to pull off this kind of benefit. The local businesses are as generous as they can be with food and money donations. Warm bodies, willing to work are getting more scarce every year.
The local judges help out by ordering teens to do so many hours of community service to pay for their petty offenses. During the holiday season these young future criminals are ordered to help those less fortunate. The teens show up under duress and court order at the buttcrack of the holiday morning, equipped with a terrible attitude and a hideously ugly orange vest provided by the great state of Texas. The vests, the attitudes, the piercings, and the awful things they do to their hair identifies them for the rest of the volunteers. It lets us know to approach with caution (they may carry switchblades, you never know). It also lets us know who to order around to do the simple tasks the busier volunteers have no time for. Today we were very shorthanded and didn't have the luxury of allowing the wayward teens to smirk on the sidelines.
Today a very hostile young lady from our group of miscreants came in with the obvious intention of doing no more than taking up space in the small kitchen and imitating plymouth rock. I had other ideas, I put the brat in the walk-in freezer to reorganize the donated frozen food that will be used next month at the Christmas feast. Amazing how a few minutes in a freezer can improve the symptoms of teenage angst. The girl's name was Carry, by about 7:30 am Carry was ready to knife me and leave my body in the freezer. Character building is important for borderline personalities like Dear Carry's, I was trying to help and thought the freezer was the best place for her. I let her cool her heels for quite some time and she did a surprisingly good job of organizing a flock of frozen turkeys.
All kinds of people show up on Thanksgiving Day, the doors at the center open at 7:00 am and stay open until 1:30 in the afternoon. Hot coffee and pastries are served until 10:00 am. Today we had a truckload of decorated cupcakes supplied by a small bakery to go along with the other sugary treats.
The smell of a soup kitchen on a holiday is absolutely heavenly, there's nothing like it. Some folks bring their families and spend the whole day chatting with family members, friends and strangers. One such family consisted of a very tired looking, very young mom, a boy of about seven, a very elderly couple, possibly the woman's grandparents, and an absolutely delightful little girl with sparkling blue eyes, cotton candy curls, and a smile that, I kid you not, could melt ancient glaciers or the hearts of certain wayward teens. The little girl was maybe four, her name is Skyla, before our day ended most everyone in the building knew Skyla's name. Skyla had wayyy too many cupcakes and before the day had really started the child had a case of the zoomies that would make our dogs grin.
Skyla sprinted into the kitchen for the first time very early in the day, food preparation was in full swing. The kitchen was no place for a sugar fueled missile like little Skyla, she was an accident looking for a place to happen. I broke several rules by picking the tiny cherub up and asking her name, she told me with a mischievous twinkle in her eyes and asked if she could have my hair bonnet. I got her a bonnet and fashioned a makeshift fairy gown from two folded paper aprons. I broke another rule by summoning the now frostbitten Carry out of the freezer and handing Skyla to the young rebel. I thought blue lips and frosty lashes had actually improved Carry's appearance so I sent her on a personal mission into the quickly growing crowd in our dining room to locate Skyla's owners. When Carry returned she of course came straight to me for further instruction. I set her to stirring a huge vat of mashed potatoes so her face could thaw enough to perhaps produce a smile, I had decided Carry could occupy a place in the serving line later, her character obviously still needed improvement.
This year produced the biggest crowd of people needing to be fed that I have ever seen at this location. I reminded myself this is a small town in Texas and a lot of people show up for a free meal, not because they need to, but because it's free and they don't have to clean up the mess. I may have been wrong about that but I feel better believing it.
Skyla, the fairy princess in the paper gown showed up in the kitchen several more times, only to be escorted to her mom by an older, grumpier princess. Carry had actually smiled a couple of times, not at me really, but toward me.
As always, there were several culinary mishaps in the kitchen, a kettle of beans boiled over and resulted in flames and a minor burn.
A young woman, first time volunteer, while deboning roasted hens, lost her engagement ring in a tub full of stuffing so the whole batch was wasted, she did find her ring after mucking through the raw stuffing for a big part of her morning, no one had time to help. I'm guessing next time the woman will remember to lose the jewelry and wear gloves like the rest of us.
*continued due to word limit*
