winter hours

I hope that this afternoon so far isn't a good indication of what winter hours will be like. Office hours were so so busy, even with two of us, and all of the sudden every single person wants socks and coats and soap and jeans and hats and deodorant. We're primarily a meal program- we do have some clothing and toiletries that have been donated, but what we can give people is so limited. I think some clients expect that we have an unlimited supply of everything, and they get annoyed when there isn't a particular size of jeans or if they only get a small hotel-sized soap and so on. I hate telling them they can only have one pair of socks per month, but we have rules like that because we have so little to give.

The weekend was a lot of fun- we went dancing on Friday night and had brunch and went to a Fall Festival at a farm in West Granby on Saturday, and I went to New Jersey yesterday. Today is 10 straight soup-kitchen hours- it has hectic and stressful moments but I really love it. I'm going to try to organize the clothes and toiletries that we do have so then I'll have a better idea of what's available to give out. And I love working the dinners on Monday because food groups come in and do all of the cooking and serving and the atmosphere is more relaxed (in part because the numbers are lower since people who stay in shelters eat dinners there).