Cincinnati update, Volume V

Yesterday, we spent the morning at Walnut Hills Soup Kitchen, where we made breakfast for lunch: lots and lots of scrambled eggs (150 eggs!), cheese omelets (another 100 or so?), cheese grits (12 pounds of dry grits!!), biscuits (about 100), banana chocolate chip muffin bars (from 24 boxes of muffin mix), barbecue pork patties (maybe 150 or so?), and orange juice! (maybe 11 gallons of juice?) after serving breakfast, we headed to get a tour of Bethany House, a shelter for women and children.
In the evening, we watched a film in which the filmmaker attempted to survive for 30 days on minimum wage, then had a discussion about the film and how it compared to our service experiences.
Today, we made lunch at Over-The-Rhine Soup Kitchen, which is part of the same organization as Walnut Hills (where we are going again tomorrow). We had a lot of fun making fried potatoes, mixed vegetables, pigs in a blanket, and lots of brownies. One of my favorite parts of cooking this morning-which the rest of the group can attest to and goodness I hope there's no video of this-was dancing around the kitchen a bit while we were cooking. Some great music in the kitchen- Al Green, Earth, Wind, and Fire, Marvin Gaye and maybe even a little Barry White! I always listen to music when I cook, so it felt a little like home (but the soup kitchen had bigger pots and pans, and was probably cleaner, too.)
After lunch, we got a tour of the Drop Inn Center, a shelter. The Drop Inn Center is a safe place to go for anyone. Tommy, our guide, told us that the best, most important, part of the shelter is the front door. At many other agencies, to receive services you have to fit certain criteria-have some employment or be moving toward employment, show a government-issued ID, etc. The Drop Inn Center will take you if you have nowhere else to go. It is nice to know that such places exist, that there is always that "last resort."

After dinner, we went to volunteer at the arts program I mentioned in my last post. It reminded me of kids I've worked with in my previous alternative break experiences (be they in Connecticut, in a small Native American community in Canada, or in an elementary school in West Philadelphia) and in my previous work experiences in the North End of Burlington; kids are kids everywhere, no matter what their lives are like, and there is something about hanging out with children that brings a smile and a little more joy to everyone.

As we continue our experiences in all these great organizations, I'm struck by how well-oiled this safety net is (if you'll allow me to mix metaphors), how well folks are being served [provided they want those services of course]. I know that there are some needs that are not being met, but overall I am really impressed: how wonderful that these organizations exist and work so well, and how terrible--how sad for all of us-- that they must.