Usually we host a Soup's On Party at our house but we decided to "reallocate" funds this year.
Instead we volunteered to help out at the Faith Cafe. It is a hot meal program that was started by a church in Beaverton. A hot meal is served to whoever is in need every Sunday eveniing and the last Thursday of the month. Our stake has adopted it as a service project for the year, each ward taking it's turn to help out.
Our ward's turn was New Year's Eve. I was the head cook! In order to help in the kitchen you had to have a food handler's license. It was an easy process. I just went online - read the handbook and took the test and paid my ten dollars. Fortunately I passed.
The Faith Cafe is in a church in Beaverton and fortunately they had a great kitchen. The Faith Cafe is basically a soup kitchen with dignity. Tables are set up and decorated with center pieces. Volunteers not only cook the food but act as greeters and servers, bringing the food to the guests. The servers then sit down and eat with and visit with the guests. While I cooked in the kitchen, Jim and the kids were servers.
All the food is donated. When we showed up there was a cart full of food and a list of ingredients - no amounts or recipe. We created a Fiesta Chicken with rice and beans. It was served with chips and salad.
Attendance was low the night we were there so there was plenty of food for the guests to take home with them in take out containers that were provided. It was a lot of work but a lot of fun too - a wonderful way to end the year! I look forward to helping out again!
After we were done at the Faith Cafe Jim and I headed over to our friends the Burks for a game night. We had fun playing Murder and Whoonu with several other couples in the ward. Tessa went to a friend's house to party and watch movies and Logan, Clark and Cali headed out to Mt. Hood Community College for a Young Adult New Year's Activity.
The boys went out with Grant and his girlfriend and they all had a fun time. They had all kinds of big inflatable games to play.
Here are the Sumo wrestlers!
Of course Cali got in on the fun too!
and then there was the mechanical bull...
and then the inflatable rock wall!
Getting all geared up!
and here is Velcro Girl!
and Velcro Boy!
Happy New Year - 2010!!
3 comments:
WOW! Look like a lot of fun! Thanks for your great example of service to all of us!
Faith Cafe was started by a woman in our parish. It has been very successful and we always have many volunteers. I'm so glad you were able to volunteer your time and culinary expertise.
Faith Cafe sounds great! I've looked it up to get more info. Thanks for doing the cooking. What a great family activity!
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