WARNING: CRITICAL THOUGHTS BELOW...

If it weren't enough to have to listen as my boss fielded calls all, and turned down, week from people wanting to come to the family shelter to volunteer on Thanksgiving...

I worked overnight at the Men's shelter last night - we allowed the guys to sit up 'til midnight to watch a movie. My 'partner' and I were exhausted and we literally counting down the minutes to Midnight (2 minutes to Miiiiddddnight!, sorry, had to do it). She went ahead and started to lie down, I went to shoo everyone out of the den and shut down and lock up the room. Just as soon as I got into the volunteer 'bedroom' and began to sit down...the phone rang.

On the other end was an old lady, she wanted to bring food on Thanksgiving, food being sweet potatoes. She stated that she had made too many and wanted to bring them somewhere. I tried to be patient as she rambled on about this. She wanted to bring them between noon and 2 or something, which is impossible as no one is at the shelter until 3pm. So I let her know that but suggested that she could try to bring it to the school a few buildings down as they were opening it up for the day so people would have a place to go (since the city shuts down on holidays, homeless folks have no where to hang out or get business done). She then wanted phone numbers for the group handling that, which I didn't have. This led to more rambling on her part - she was coming into Mpls from Blaine and didn't want to drive over to the school if they couldn't take it but I couldn't guarentee that the could or would take it. Finally, I suggested that she call around 7am and talk to my boss and maybe he could tell her more. Gah! She had good intentions but calling somewhere at Midnight to discuss them was kind of not good.

This morning, as the meal group got their breakfast started, the fire alarm started squealing. No one knew how to turn it off, I couldn't find a notation anywhere about how to turn it off. The 1st call matainance man wouldn't answer his phone but luckily the 2nd guy did. After a half and hour or more of the extremely loud alarm blaring, a simple push of a button disarmed it. Yes! Unfortunatlely, it was a shocking wake up call for the guys, who were incidently supposed to be able to sleep in until 7am this morning (the alarm started around 6:15am).

So to wrap up:

Volunteering and donating the other 362 days a year = good

Volunteering and donating only on Thanksgiving, xmas and Easter = not as helpful to bombard agencies with offers though the thought is still appreciated (although my personal thought is that it seems a little artificial and insincere to only want to help on holidays)

Ariana and I have started a thing where each time we go to Target, we check the men's clearance for socks and undies and pick them up as they are on sale or clearance - otherwise we try to bring something at least once a month if not each time I volunteer/work (about 2 x a month). Donating to the men's shelter isn't as sexy to the general public as donating to other shelters, that's fine, I do understand. Believe me, I've gone through all the thoughts and judgements and annoyances over the years. I am trying to wean that out of me and just think about their basic needs as humans, even if they didn't always make great choices throughout life possibly, they still have time for a 2nd chance. And not all of them even fall under that catagory, it really runs the gamet.

Anyway, if people that liked to donate or volunteer just picked up one thing each trip and brought it somewhere, the basic needs like undies/socks/deodorant/tampons/etc... would stay better stocked.

Did you know that most food shelves don't carry feminine hygiene products? When the cafe closed this past year and I lost my job and was waiting on unemployment and such, that was a problem for me, with no cash it was hard to get this basic need. I mean, I don't like bleeding anyway but damn, it happens whether you have money to take care of it or not. Anyway, I will stop talking about that now and go take the dog out...