Lunch at the BLC

Saturday morning I spent with an experience group of volunteers at the Boston Living Center. I am making a bad habit of arriving ten minutes late to places where I volunteer. I am still trying to get the hang of things and how to get into Boston and park and whatnot…In my defense, I am usually the volunteer that travels the most, but that is certainly no excuse! I’ll have to leave earlier next time, and I’ll be taking the T into Boston.

I spent most of my time in the kitchen making sure the larger pots and serving trays and other food containers were washed. It was a different atmosphere since most of the volunteers at the BLC were "veteran" volunteers who have been volunteering there for years. Everyone knew what they were doing and what they had to do to run a flawless show. I did my best to make myself useful and be as much help as I could.

Having kitchen duty, while not bad at all, somewhat limited my interaction with the folks that came in for lunch. Instead, I had an opportunity to chat and learn from the other, more experienced volunteers.The really busy time in the kitchen is just after folks finish eating, which sounds so obvious, but being so used to serving at other places, I was somehow expecting it to be busy as folks arrived.

Another great experience volunteering in the Boston area. If the opportunity arises, I’ll definitely sign up to help out at the BLC again.  

Women’s Lunch Place

This past Saturday I spent a good portion of my afternoon helping out at the Women’s Lunch Place in Boston. As the link will explain, the Women’s Lunch Place (WPL) is where poor or homeless women and their children can go to for a hot meal.

I got involved with WPL through BostonCares. Specifically, I was there to help serve the wonderful ladies and help clean up once meals were finished. Once i got in and strapped the apron on, I felt very comfortable being in a large kitchen. Just shows you how all of those years helping my mom and her catering business really provided me with some skills i could put to use. The contrasting difference, is the complete lack of stress when helping setup and serve the food at WPL.

Volunteering there really was a great pleasure. It was a lot of fun to help them out and to treat those ladies as if each one was a special guest in a fancy restaurant. I hope that the great meal and the warm service has made them smile.

Because the organisation wants to provide a more personal touch, the servers take the already made plates to the ladies at their tables, as they would do if they were in a restaurant.

The kitchen staff, our project leader and the rest of the servers were really great. I even ran across another volunteer that i worked with previously at another one of the BostonCares projects. Everyone was very helpful and everyone worked together to do their best. Our project leader was wonderful and took the time to personally meet with just about everyone of our guests.

Once the dessert was served, I volunteered to take over the pot-scrubbing duty and did that for pretty much the remainder of the afternoon. Everyone helped out with cleaning up the kitchen as well as the hall.

Comparing this experience to my other volunteering experiences, this was the first time where I could interact with the people that i am trying to help out, while the other volunteering projects I’ve been involved with I had to ponder the impact on those I was trying to help.

Working at the WPL is one of the very hot places to volunteer at BostonCares and I most definitely will volunteer there again. The slots fill up fast, but I’ve already signed up to help out in one of the Saturdays in May. Though, I will have to plan a bit better my trip into Boston so that i do not end up paying $26 for parking at Copley Place again. I am looking forward to it