The Spirit Of Giving

While talking to Shelby a while before Christmas, she mentioned that if she and James didn't go up to Tomball to visit her grandmother for Christmas, they were thinking of maybe going to a soup kitchen to volunteer over the Christmas Break. They did end up going to Tomball, but her idea got me thinking. Joe and I had invited Bob and Sharon to come down for Christmas, but they decided to stay in Palestine and come to visit the week after. So, it was just going to be the two of us. I thought doing some volunteer work would be a good way to remember the reason for the season, and to help us feel more of the Christmas Spirit. I looked into it online and found that every Thanksgiving and Christmas, there's a charity that puts on a big dinner for those that are less fortunate. Thousands of people come to volunteer, and thousands more are on the receiving end and get to have a hot meal that otherwise they would have gone without. It's held at the George R. Brown Convention Center.

Joe ended up mentioning it in one of his meetings with the Teachers in Young Mens at church and some of them said they wanted to go. One of the moms ended up contacting me and letting me know she would like to come and bring her oldest children also. So, on Christmas eve we woke up around 6:30 and got ready and then picked up one of Joe's boys. Then we met Cali and her kids and they followed us to the convention center. When I signed us up online we were asked to also bring some canned food, a few unused toys, and any clothing we'd like to donate.

When we walked in there were big signs and tables around the insider perimeter of the building that were labeled "Toys, Food, and Clothing." This was a picture of Joe and the boys sorting out the food we had brought. Each table was sorted into different categories like fruit, meat, beans, vegetables, etc.

We distributed the things we had brought, and then they had a little orientation meeting. This is the best picture I could get of all the volunteers. We were listening to the instruction on the different things we could chose to do to help.

After orientation we kind of wandered to each place where we could chose to volunteer. There were tons of people already at the toy tables, the kids had to be 18 in order to serve food so we didn't want to just leave them, the canned food was already quickly being put into paper bags to pass out to the people that were coming for a meal, so we decided we would help fold, sort, and pass out the clothing. It was a little chaotic at first but eventually the main person in charge of the clothing section called "Team Captains" for each table that the clothes were being sorted into. For example, Newborn to 18 months, toddler, boys, girls, women, men, etc. The guy asked for people with management skills to volunteer to be team captains. Joe put his hand right up=) He was put in charge of the boys and girls ages 6-12. He had signs made and everyone got sorting. Pants together, arranged from smallest to largest. Shirts, sweaters, coats, etc all done the same way. This was our table shortly after everyone figured out what we were supposed to do.

Here's Joe with his Teachers. Eric on the left, Jared on the right.

They didn't let the people that were coming to eat and pick up food, clothing, and toys come in until about 11am. After the clothes were all sorted, the men arranged tables along the outside of the clothing section where each age and gender of clothing could be represented and they could let those coming to receive, do some "shopping". It's kind of hard to explain. This picture is kind of far away, but you can see they put a row of chairs around the tables, so that people couldn't just run up and grab stuff. The guy in charge let maybe 10-15 people go in to the walkway between the chairs and the tables where they could "shop" from, and they had about 5 minutes to chose what they wanted. Each person(even children) were given 1 brown paper bag that was the size you'd get at a grocery store. Then they could go through and chose whatever they wanted to fill the bag. Once it was filled, they had to leave the clothing section. If they just wanted pants, they could fill it with pants, or just shirts, or socks, or whatever they needed.

Here is Joe getting everything organized before the people came in. Each age group had to be represented with a few pants, shirts, coats, etc. Then once people came through and did their shopping, we would replenish the table with the things we had sorted on the "back tables." You can see the little walkway better in this picture.

I didn't take a picture of everything once they let the people in, mostly because we were super busy replenishing the table. Our tables were the first to be cleared. There were so many people looking for children's clothing. Also, I kinda felt bad taking pictures of the people. There was a huge line for clothing though. They were mostly hispanic, and reminded me of the people I had served on my mission. So humble and sweet. Most people would come in and go to the clothing, or toy section first. Once they had the things they needed, they would then go get food and have a hot meal with their family.

This is just a picture of all the tables set up for the meal. They put pretty tablecloths and I thought they did a great job of making it pretty, even though they had thousands to feed. The group of people to the left are helping to get the food set up and then they were the first shift to serve food.

This was the group from church that came with us(minus Cali. She didn't want to be in the picture) These are amazing kids! They were so willing to serve and do whatever was asked of them. I think they really enjoyed doing this!

There is just something so amazing about giving service. I always feel like I walk away gaining more than those that I was able to serve. We really had so much fun and it was so rewarding to see the needs of people met that day. I would love to make this a tradition! It really helped us feel the love of Christ, and set the mood for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.