GraceHurney

Grace Hurney

Civic Engagement

March 11, 2009.

Reflections: The Final Day

As the week came to a close, with sadness I found myself at our last day of volunteering. Well, not all sadness, cause I was tired and needed to see my parents. That aside, we began our day (again bright and early) at the Nashville Rescue Mission.

Honestly, the whole day was wonderful- I had absolutely no negative or frustrating moments. I chose to work in the kitchens instead of the basement this time, and my choice was rewarded. We worked hard, but had fun preparing and serving the food. We started off cutting bread, then progressed to cutting potatoes and de-boning turkey (not my job, I’ll stick to the vegetables). Then we served lunch, which was one of the most rewarding experiences of the whole trip. The men were so kind and grateful, and I was thankful for them allowing us to come into the Mission and accepting us instead of antagonizing us (which had happened during the week). I remember one man even gave us his address so we could be pen pals with him- if I could locate whoever is in possession of this address, I would love to write him. We then prepared more food, mainly cutting up zucchinis. We had fun while we were doing this, seeing who could peel the vegetables the fastest and so on and so forth. Then at the close of the day, we were escorted upstairs to a private dinner. When we arrived, I saw a massive amount of food, given to us as a token of the staff’s appreciation for the hard work we had put in during the week. I remember sitting in the chair, reflecting on everything we had completed in the week; everything from the frustrating to uplifting moments of the week. Despite my paint splattered jeans and lack of sleep (that’s my fault really, I should have gone to bed earlier), I would certainly repeat this experience if given the privilege to do so.