Today we woke up to a harmony of cricket chirps, not because the blessing of spring provided a natural alarm clock, but because my 7:00 AM alarm was set to that sound and to the annoyance of the rest of the group, I slept straight through the first 5 minutes of it. After waking up, eating breakfast together, singing a morning Happy Birthday to Riley, and boarding the vans, we set off to our first destination in downtown Raleigh, The Shepard's Table. There we were so warmly welcomed by a group of regular volunteers who offered us aprons and got us started immediately preparing food that we would soon serve for lunch. Some of our preparations included washing and slicing potatoes, folding napkins and silverware, and cutting fruit. At 11:30, after a gathering and prayer with all the volunteers who so thoughtfully put together a cupcake and candle for Riley, we opened the doors. Almost immediately, people started coming in and going through the line to get a plate of warm, fresh food. As the dining room was filling up, Devon came to the station where Jamie and I were filling drinks and snagged a couple of pitchers. Many of the servers in the food line looked on as she did much more than refill their drinks. She, along with Nick and Nathan, smoothly worked their way around the room and created an atmosphere of fine dining and a sense of welcoming and warmth. This place with such modest beginnings, now serves more than 250 people every day and we felt lucky to be able to be a part of their vision to provide the people of downtown Raleigh with warm, homemade meals.
After lunch, we went back to Neighbor to Neighbor, where we picked up on our work in the garden from Monday. Today, Royce, who is in charge of the organization, introduced us to his friends Dr. Steve Edwards and Casanova "Cas" Womack, who helped us finish weeding the infinite crabgrass and build/install the garden beds. With fifteen of us weeding, drilling, constructing, and shoveling, the time flew by and after a few hours we could already see significant change in our endeavors. The whole group pitched in carrying cinder blocks and shoveling and leveling the dirt to make one large garden bed. And after that, Kristi and Chase were power drill pros when there were making the garden beds and Zach and Samantha quickly shoveled away the soil for a walking path between the beds. Between starting a dance off to pat down the soil path and finding grubs who resembled Matt and his gf, this hump day at the Neighbor to Neighbor garden was one to remember and cherish.
We came back to the church where we joined the Highland congregation for their Wednesday dinner of delicious brisket, mashed potatoes, and brownies with ice cream. We so greatly appreciated their generosity and warm hospitality even though they asked us to perform a rendition of "Rocky Top" to the entire room before dinner. Later in the evening, we reflected on the day and compared the direct service we were a part of at The Sheppard's Table to the more indirect service at the community garden, and we decided on the equal importance of both kinds of work.
- Heather Winter and Caroline Arias
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