The Circle of Food

We had 2 shifts at Ealing Soup Kitchen today with Jenni attending the first to help with the setup for clients who would arrive in the evening.

Jenni had been at City Harvest over the weekend and found that the food that she'd packed up there was now waiting to be repacked and distributed to the Soup Kitchen's clients. She got to work, putting drinks, fruits and snacks into each bag, ready to be collected during the evening session.

As the later session approached, Sevan arrived, soon followed by Madhan. Our paths may have crossed, but they didn't see Jenni's exit as we entered.

Sevan was assigned to the menswear tables, which felt a bit easier than last time when he'd been placed on womenswear. This involved finding suitable clothes for clients and making sure the tables looked tidy and not like the Next Xmas sale.

Meanwhile Madhan started by working back of house, sorting new deliveries by gender, size and type. Summer clothes were set to one side, with everything else prepared to be taken. Soon, he joined Sevan on menswear, giving expert advice on sizing and warmth for each piece of clothing.

After the first hour, the rush of people had died down and gave them the chance to have a cuppa and chat. It was back to work soon enough, with more clients arriving and Sevan moving to sort and categorise.

Not long after it was time to clean up. Clothes went back into vacuum bags and labels were adjusted to describe the new contents. Sevan was introduced to the "cupboard of death" where the vacuum bags were stored between sessions. Tetris cupboard may have been more apt as the volunteers needed to squeeze the differently shaped bags of clothes onto 2 shelves. Luckily Sevan had it easy as the shelves were still mostly empty.

The final tasks in the run up to 8pm were to clean and fold all of the tables and sweep the floor. With the hall looking as they imagined it had 4 hours ago, Sevan and Madhan felt a lot of satisfaction with the help they'd given.