Volunteers!

We went to our first volunteer orientation today. It started at 1:00 p.m., so we thought we'd have plenty of time to pick up our mail afterwards (the mail window is open 1-4). Wrong! We finished up around 4:20 p.m. and needed to be back at the CARE Center by 5:00 p.m. to shadow the on call volunteers. We only had time for a quick salad and deep breath before heading back to the Center.

5:00 p.m. is the evening meal time from Monday through Saturday. The on call volunteers keep a record of who is there for the meal and generally help out in the dining room. They also get to eat if they wish. Tonight the menu was pizza and dessert. After the meal we were watching the folks in the kitchen, and they asked us to come in and watch what they were doing. Before we knew it, we were washing dishes. The idea is to learn by doing! We earned our little Care Bears today.

We met some of the residents and some of our fellow volunteers today. One seasoned volunteer warned us that the first two weeks can be pretty difficult, but then it's all downhill from there. Today part of the challenge was learning people's names and faces--not one of my strong points.

We have to be up early in the morning to shadow the 8:30 a.m. kitchen volunteers (and help them out, of course). That job lasts until after lunch cleanup. Then we have to be back at 4:00 for our fill-in assignment to assist with the evening meal. Everyone is being asked to fill in a bit, since the September volunteers have left.