Angel Heart

Tuesday we would work again preparing meals for those in need. It would be a different style of preparation and a different need, however, yet still a need. I decided to take an excerpt directly from my personal journal... here is a piece of my Tuesday:

"We arrived at a nice looking building at about 7:45am... Our contact arrived after us and guided us into the kitchen where she introduced 3 full time chefs and 5 (or so) other volunteers. The kitchen was state of the art; large with all kinds of equipment. The meal of the day consisted of some sort of seafood that looked really good. We learned that the kitchen prepared 300 meals a day to be served to folks with little money and who were diagnosed with a terminal illness such as cancer or AIDS. Of that number, 80 were served hot because the recipients could not prepare them for themselves (or what-not) and the rest were served frozen. So a second day in a kitchen preparing meals, but what a stark contrast. We worked in a fancy kitchen with professional chefs albeit the day was far removed from the clientele."

The place we worked was great. The people were good to work with and provided a wonderful service. We basically spent our morning cutting, chopping, washing dishes and packing the meals. As I said, it was much more removed from Monday's experience but great none-the-less. We did deliver 2 meals but did not get the opportunity to visit with the recipients. Volunteers will normally deliver the meals each day (they serve 6 days a week). I visited with one of the chefs, however, to find that they rotated "on duty" days meaning that if the volunteers could not deliver the meals the chefs would deliver them. He said that this kept them "in touch" with the people they were working for. I like that idea.

We spent the rest of the afternoon at the DenUM building. Our guided tour showed us their programs and all of the services they provide. Part of our tour was visiting with a homeless man who spearheads a newspaper focusing on homelessness. The newspaper has a circulation of 8,000 and he has strong connections with the local Denver government that allows him to travel the country and speak at conferences on the topic of homelessness... an intelligent and interesting man to visit with.

Here's to staying "in touch"

Jesse