“Where’s
When I walked down the steps into the soup kitchen for the first time, I did not know what to expect. As I entered through the doorway, I found myself in a brightly lit room with three tables, set and awaiting the arrival of the guests. Of the three tables, two were fairly long while the third was shorter. Each was decorated with a colorful tablecloth and silk flowers. The Gettysburg Community Soup Kitchen is located in the basement of the Prince of Peace Church and while there is limited space in the basement, they have done their best to make use of it. Along with the three dining tables, there is a table for drinks and a Give-Away-Table. The Give-Away-Table is were people can drop off clothes that they do not want anymore and where unused food is placed so the guests can take it home. When they come in this is the first place the guests go, to see if there is anything there they can use. Also in the dining area is a bulletin board that informs the guests of other services and classes that are offered to them. While this is something that I’m sure the guests overlook quite often, I feel that it is an important addition to the kitchen. It is one more thing that shows the staff is there to help the guests in many facets of their lives, not just by providing them with food.
Off
of the dinning area is the actual kitchen out of which the food is served. It
looks like most kitchens, but has multiples of everything: two stoves, three
refrigerators/ freezers, and three sinks.
There is a large multi-purpose table in the middle of the kitchen and an
industrial sanitizer for the plates and silverware. The cupboards and
refrigerators are always stocked with food, ready to be prepared at a moment’s
notice, if that day’s meal runs out. On Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and
Saturdays the food is prepared by local churches and brought to the kitchen,
but on busy days this is sometimes not enough and more food must be
prepared. Along with your basic kitchen
appliances and supplies, you also will find in this kitchen a handful of very
dedicated volunteers. Nancy is the one in charge, Dot keeps the kitchen running
smoothly, Holly is there to do whatever needs to be done, and Linda is the
saint that does all the dishes. I have a lot of respect for these women. It takes a very selfless person to give up
their morning every day to come help feed the hungry of
As in all soup kitchens, there is always plenty to do, so extra hands are always welcome. When I first started my volunteer position at the soup kitchen, I worried that I wouldn’t find my niche and would always be in the way, but as part of the Monday kitchen crew there was never a lack of things to do. Each week there I would find myself doing different chores; some days I would be working in the kitchen putting food on plates, other days I would be serving the plates to the guests. Unlike the other kitchens I have worked at in the past, the Gettysburg Community Soup Kitchen brings the food out to their guests. This, I feel, adds to the feeling that the kitchen is more like a home and less like a soup kitchen. Once all the plates have been put out, there are desserts to be passed out, plates to be refilled, and guests with whom to visit. I love talking to the guests and learning about them. Even if I have nothing of importance to talk about, they love having a listening ear with which they can share their stories. There is this man named Joe who could talk for hours about his love for music and traveling. While I have no way of knowing if what he is saying is true, all that matters to me is the joy on his face when he is telling me his different stories. After all the guests have left, I help put away all the dishes, clean up the food, and make sure the kitchen is ready for the next day. When everything that needs to be done is done, I get my things and walk home, contemplating all of the day’s events.
Homelessness and its related issues are some things that cannot be learned about through books alone; they are concepts that must be seen first hand and experienced. Often in a book, you will read about an issue or concept, but will not fully comprehend it until you have witnessed it. For our class, we have read numerous novels and articles and seen multiple movies regarding homelessness. While I have learned from them, it is the service learning and volunteering out of which I get the most. For me they put a face with a fact or statistic. It’s easy to close a book and put it back on the shelf, but it’s hard to ignore a problem when it’s right there in your face. At the soup kitchen, I have witnessed many of the issues we have talked about in class, from the importance of family networks to the lack of social services. In the time that I’ve been there, I have come to see that all of their guests are lacking a support network in some way or another; some have no family at all while others have family who are of little to no help. However, what they lack from their real family they make up for at the soup kitchen. They laugh together, cry together, complain together, and share experiences together; in a sense, they are one giant family. Even more evident than the networks is the issue of how much of a difference welfare and social security checks make in the lives of their recipients. At the beginning of the month, when the checks come in, the soup kitchen serves very few people, but as the month progresses more and more people need to rely on the kitchen for their meals. To me, this displays how important that aid is and how much their lives hinge on it. While every book we read touched on one or both of these issues, I was never fully able to comprehend them until I saw the lives they affected.
When
I first started volunteering at the soup kitchen I only knew one name,
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