Friday Night Plans

This post is a little late in coming -- the events took place the weekend before my retreat. I don't want to let it slide, however, so I'm going to go back in time momentarily. A couple of Fridays ago, CCM provided the volunteer force for a homeless shelter the next city over. (The 'burg has nothing of the sort, though it is not without homeless people.)

I took the check-in and dinner shift. I had worked at this shelter before -- it's housed in a Baptist church and CCM takes a weekend every year. However, I had mostly stuck in the kitchen, cooking, cleaning, and serving. This time I volunteered for the check-in process. My job was to help people bag up their possessions to be left in another room for the night. Guests could keep toiletries, food, book, mp3 players, and such not, but extra clothing, coats, hats, drinks, and any other possessions were checked in huge bags. Each guest had a number that went on his or her bag, name tag, and bed roll. They checked in with name and number. As the coordinator explained the process to me, I didn't like it. Too much focused on people as numbers.

However, when the guests began to arrive, I found that, although each person had a number, he or she was greeted by name. I discovered I enjoyed being in the check-in station, being the smiling face to greet people. Forcing myself to smile gave me real energy and joy and made each subsequent smile easier. Some of the guests were a blast, both at the initial check-in and later in the night.

Before any guest was allowed in, a sheriff's deputy gave him or her a breathalyser. No one above the legal limit could come in. Only one man had a problem the entire night. One of the other volunteers offered him a plate of food and a cup of coffee for him to have outside as he sobered up, but he was having none of it. Eventually, the deputy called for someone to come and take him away, because he just wasn't leaving.

Other than that, the evening was eventless. By the time we had finished checking in guests, dinner was mostly over. We helped clear tables and chairs out of the multi-purpose room to get ready to convert it to a bedroom. This large room was the men's sleeping area; the women and kids (there were fewer) had a different, smaller room. We handed out sheets and mats by calling out numbers. There were two of us on calling duty, and the men joked that we must have been cheerleaders. No, a loud Irish-German-Polish family does that to you.

After handing out the bedding, I joined the other volunteers in the hallway, where some of the guests came to chat. A few of them were particularly friendly, and we had some fun conversation. Then the next crew came, and I said good-byes.

The evening made me realize how much I miss last year, with its focus on serving other people and its opportunities for random volunteering. This year, I have to be more intentional about finding places to serve, and I'm still learning the balance.