Christ House Lunch and Being Put on Blast!



So yesterday, (meaning last Sunday),  I finally made it to the Christ House to serve lunch but before I get into the whole experience, I have some things to vent about . During my time at Christ House, I had a really good conversation with a fellow DC Cares volunteer, Deana. Deana was a retired nurse who moved to the area from Arizona.  She started off by thanking me for being a person of my word and actually showing up to volunteer. DC Cares is a good way to get started serving as I mentioned in one of my earlier posts because it gives you access to such a huge calendar of opportunities. She talked about how she started serving and the fact that she was a volunteer leader.  Greater DC Cares mobilizes more than 43,000 volunteers to serve more than 860 nonprofits and schools each year, providing thousands of hours of critical services and skills to those in need to the Washington DC area. The organization relies on it's volunteer leaders to manage the projects and volunteers who show up to serve.

Volunteer leaders communicate with the staff of the project sites and manage the volunteers who show up at the site.  With all that being said, Deana mentioned that DC Cares has a bad reputation as of late because so many people sign up to serve but don't actually show up.  She also mentioned that a fellow volunteer leader she knows sends out very "stern" emails to those individuals who sign up to serve but don't actually show up.  So right there I felt convicted because I have been one of those volunteers, lol.... The one who on a couple of occasions singed up for a project but did not bother to remove myself from the project.  Most recently I was that "lazy volunteer" last Saturday : (  The snow and the ice deterred me from trucking out early in the morning, so I just decided to stay home. Well low and behold, Sunday night when I checked my email, I found that I was the recipient of  one of those stern emails that stated, " I hope all is well.  I noticed that you did not show up yesterday and would appreciate if you would remove yourself from the project so that others can sign up it you can't make it."  Even though I understand the frustration that she feels as a result of having 4 out of 10 volunteers show up, I think she handled the whole thing totally wrong. You don't want to deter someone from volunteering with the organization by leaving a bad taste in their mouth, smh.....

Anyway, after that I removed myself from several projects and only signed up for two new ones, in addition to the two regular ones I do a month. I get it though, be a person of your word.  Christ House
Christ House opened in December 1985 as the first 24-hour residential medical facilities for homeless men and women in the United States. Today, Christ House is still the only facility of its kind in the Washington, DC, metropolitan area where over 6,000 people experience homelessness every day. To the best of our knowledge, there are only 13 stand-alone residential medical facilities for the homeless like Christ House in all of the U.S. and Canada. Patients are admitted to Christ House from area hospitals, shelters, clinics, and medical outreach projects. They suffer from a variety of illnesses and injuries including cancer, hypertension and stroke, liver disease, kidney failure, diabetes and related amputations, HIV/AIDS, respiratory disease, major lacerations, fractures, and ulcerations of the skin. Many are malnourished, anemic, depressed, and desperately disconnected from healthy sources of support.

The mission of Christ House is to provide comprehensive health care to sick, homeless men and women from the District of Columbia, and to assist them in addressing critical issues to help break the cycle of homelessness. The goal for the day was to prepare food for the individuals who are residents of the facility.  We prepped the food, set up the dining room, served drinks and served lunch to the residents. The meal consisted of lasagna, salad and garlic bread which sounded great to me but allot of the residents scoffed at, lol. They usually prefer chicken or some kind of meat for some reason, which I can understand. I also got a change to chat up some of the residents and one of them told me that I looked like I kicked a dead bird! Which meant I looked sad to him, lol.... I am naturally very chill person, who looks emotionless at time but am quite passionate.

*On a final note check out a video about Christ House.

http://www.christhouse.org/about/index.html