An early Christmas present.“W-w-what’s for dinner tonight?” stuttered the young indigenous man, eagerly.
“Chicken!” I said with certainty and familiarity. I knew him, but for the sake of this post I will keep him anonymous. We’d had a chequered friendship because of his mental illness and violent tendencies, so I am always wary of him but he can be placated easily enough. Usually with food.
The soup kitchen is an extension of an outreach program by a large church organisation. Thankfully, they aren’t preachy here and everyone is welcome for a free meal and other forms of support. Most of the food is either donated from local businesses like bakeries or fruit and veg places. There supplies like toothbrushes and other toiletries, and donated clothing. Most of the clothing either doesn’t fit me or doesn’t interest me, but a few months ago I got a fairly decent jacket, it just needed bigger pockets otherwise it’s perfect.
My first task, apart from signing in and affixing my name badge, is to set up the produce, bread and the above mentioned supplies on the tables shown below so they can be distributed easily. I also hand out plastic bags to everyone who walks through the door.
Eggs, tomatoes, fruit, veggies and bread ready for distribution. My next task is to set up the tables and chairs, often with the help of a few other volunteers.
It’s a rather large hall that is often filled to standing room only, sometimes as many as 80 people. For some reason today’s numbers were down. The idea is that people can sit and chat away protected from the elements.
Faces hidden for privacy reasons. The yellow liquid is cordial.
A friendly menu. That’s supposed to say trifle.The first course was pizza with a side of salad from a nearby pizza store, so it’s both hot and fresh.
Salad and a slice of pizza.If it’s really crowded, I will help out with the...
Dishing up!
The chicken veggies were cooked to perfection and you cannot forget the gravy!There was plenty left over for seconds, but I was too busy talking to a journalist friend of mine to care. He documents the state of homelessness around Adelaide and the state of the various government services / charitable organisations available. It’s often terrible.
But that not the focus here, because soon it was...
Dessert time!You can see take-home dessert packs being made above.
Trifle, icecream and vanilla custard.While probably not the most photogenic dessert for this particular competition, it was going to have to do.
The atmosphere, with the smaller crowd, was a lot friendlier and people could talk a lot more I felt.
I should have mentioned earlier that the soup kitchen is open from 6pm to 7pm every Sunday, but rotates 4 groups of volunteers so that each group only has to work every 4 weeks.
There’s coffee, tea, and hot Milo (a local not-quite-chocolate drink) and mixed cordial (sort of like Kool Aid) and everything is free of charge.
Volunteers are often run off their feet transporting used dishes and cutlery to the kitchen, cleaning up spills and bringing out each course.
At the end of the night they clean everything and put everything away for next time. I enjoy it. The volunteers and the people that go there can be quite interesting and sometimes quite funny. I used to be a client of these services myself and I know how vital they are.
The thumbnail image at the top of this post, was a gift given to each of the volunteers by the coordinator. I just a moment to snap this shot before being given a lift home.
Inside was small packet of Maltesers and a mini Turkish Delight chocolate bar. Very cute indeed.
I wished all of my volunteer friends a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year before being whisked away home.
Well, another entry has come to a close but the year isn’t over yet!
I hope you enjoyed a little insight into my world and I will see you again, next time.
Until then, have fun!
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