Explanation of Hours - Narrative

The first day that I spent at Andre House, along with fellow group members Jared, Max, Eric, Julian, and Ryan, was a typical food kitchen experience. When we arrived we were instructed to sign in, wash our hands, put our gloves on, and get to work. We began by buttering bread and preparing it to be given out to homeless people. While buttering the bread we were able to get to know the people working along with us. Most of the volunteers seemed to originate from youth groups or some sort of church group, while just as many volunteers were students like us that needed community service hours. After we finished buttering hundreds of pieces of bread, we moved on to wrap forks in napkins. After finishing with the utensils, I went to the basement where we were instructed to break in boxes and prepare them for recycling.
It sort of impressed me that Andre House takes the time to recycle their boxes even when they have hundreds of other tasks to complete every day. After breaking down those boxes we took boxes of food out of the food storage and returned to the kitchen where we made final preparations for the people to come through the food line. I was personally assigned to dish duty on this occasion so I didn’t get to experience the actual food line, but I was still able to interact with the homeless individuals as they thanked each of us graciously for their food. After we finished serving hundreds of people, we had to clean the whole place top to bottom and wrap up our day.
The days following the first were composed of basically the same general idea except with different activities. The second day was spent mostly in the basement working with clothing and other materials, while the third was another day of food kitchen work. The experience was altogether enjoyable, even though it was composed of a lot of hard work. It was a great bonus to be able to interact with the individuals that experience Andre House every day. I learned a lot about civil service through my several trips over the years to Andre House.