Volunteering brings great joy and sometimes surprises. St. Francis Soup Kitchen in Portland, Oregon was a great life lesson in giving to others and taught us life surprises too.

In the 1990's I was a Catholic youth minister for ten years at St. Thomas Aquinas Church in Camas, WA and led many social justice projects. Social justice is a big part of my inner core. I had the best job in the world...helping teens get involved in serving others just for the joy of it. We had fun, laughed, played and learned about real life through volunteering.


We worked once a month for two years at St. Francis Soup Kitchen in Portland. We served meals and helped in the kitchen. Unexptectedly, there were surprises that we learned as we volunteered: 1. Looking into the eyes of the homeless people coming down your food line was a big surprise. You could see all kinds of things in their eyes including happiness, gratefulness and hopelessness too. 2. We were told at our first training that sometime there are  fights between the homeless during mealtime. Our instructions were to back up against the wall and wait for instructions. 3. We served soup and also did fundraisers back at our church in order to help furnish the "family" dining room at St. Francis. We provided a carpet for the floor and a vaccuum cleaner. The surprise there for us was that there are many, many families that are homeless and come for meals. 4. Some of the homeless walk many miles a day just to come get a good meal.

St. Francis's mission is to create a safe and healing environment, a transition for individuals into new lives including education, recovery skills and spiritual grace.  And hope.

Their address is 111 W Burnside St., Portland OR 97209 and their phone number is: 503-227-0421

Have you had life surprises??  Or volunteered for the joy of it?

Jill Watts, Keller Williams
MY MOST IMPORTANT HOME SALE IS YOURS!
360-852-1689 office
jillwatts@kw.com


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