post-its

Even though the soup kitchen isn't exactly like a real "office job," I still seem to have a thousand post-its and manilla envelopes and excel spreadsheets to organize. I'm constantly making phone calls and going to little meetings and visits and trying to network with lots of new people. Lately I've been working on contacting and meeting with managers from some of the area Starbucks and Dunkin Donuts and local bakeries for donations for our Homeless Connect Day in December, as well as for our holiday meals and for every day of the week (we put out pastries and bagels in the morning with coffee when our clients come in).

There was a meeting this morning to plan our holiday meals- we are definitely having big meals on Thanksgiving Day and Christmas Day, but the other holidays are more flexible since other soup kitchens in the city have holidays meals too. We decided to do brunch on Christmas Eve instead of lunch, and I'm excited because I love brunch food and I'll be able to go home a few hours earlier than if we served lunch at regular time.

Thursday I'm faciliating a community meeting in my neighborhood for locals and Trinity students to meet their neighbors and discuss what they like and are concerned about and ways they can change it..I don't know how many Trinity students will show up, or how many care about the local neighborhood beyond the gates of their school. But I hope it will be productive and that I'll be able to represent both a local resident (even though it's only my third month here) but also someone young who can relate to the college students.

I think the rest of the month (and really the whole holiday season) is go by really quickly between people visiting, going to Vermont one weekend and then New Jersey the next, planning for Homeless Connect Day and all of the holiday meals, starting movie screenings and new programs at the soup kitchen, etc. etc. It's busy here but I love what I'm doing and I'm really enjoying myself.