Week 01 - Introductions

Last Wednesday was my first week with at the shelter. It was incredibly quiet when I first arrived, no homeless were yet even visible in the area, though it was dark and may have been misleading. We entered into the church and to the kitchen where my wife and I met with 3 volunteer girls, a church leader managing the kitchen, and a director from Union Gospel Mission.  I then met one more volunteer that was a UGM (Union Gospel Mission) employee in charge of the door for the night. That made for a total of 6 volunteers & 2 staff to sustain the 20-bed shelter in that day. Another church volunteer had partnered to coordinate volunteers into the shelters on different days in a spreadsheet that she's maintaining throughout the event.

I was in charge of the meal for the week, which can be a daunting task for an individual, but not so much for a group. Fortunately, all the volunteers are there to help cook and distribute the food. We planned a meal of spaghetti and meatballs, salad, and water for a drink. Another group had donated a pan of mashed potatoes wit gravy. We quickly learned that we had forgotten desert and that the homeless would've preferred to have that. The staff and/or kitchen master had already set up coffee. We prepared food for approximately 30 minutes until people started to arrive. It remained modestly quiet to this point. Some men came in an went to sleep on their beds, not concerned about getting a plate of food. The distribution was fairly orderly & few complaints were given. Some compliments were given, particularly to the mashed potatoes. The meal had cost me approximately $100 total, or about $5 / person we had estimated for. The cooking of the food went quite smoothly and did not pose many problems.

Once everyone was eating, I spent some time speaking with the paid employee from UGM that was in charge of the door. He keeps track of who shows up or doesn't in an excel spreadsheet and sign-in sheet everyday. He send the sheet to a UGM database, where it is compiled with other data. His desk was by the door, which locked after a certain time period. He also had hand sanitizer & a basket of various supplies that people had left or that he had to hand out. Behind him in an office was his boss, checking in to see how the shelter was going. On the sign in sheet, only 10 had signed in and only 18 names had been filled. The sheet left space for up to 22 "guests" and had a notes section at the end of the page. The only note on the sheet this night (Nov. 25) was of a male who had called in to say he would be staying in Olympia for the night. In the bottom right were boxes to fill in on # of men sheltered, meals served breakfast, and meals served dinner. Neither had information in during the time I was meeting with him.

I spent time meeting the men of the shelter, there were 6 men that I had conversations with and got to know by name: Byron, Cedric, Tim, Tyler,  Ron, and another Tim. I asked a bit about their day, the food, and where they were from. They were all friendly and calm. One man seemed to mutter after sentences and may have had some mental illness, everyone else came across fairly normal. Another man was quite talkative and spent a good deal of time discussing history, asking various questions. First he talked about the history of New York City, then the history of Seattle. I didn't check over his facts but they did seem to follow my shallow understandings of Seattle's history. They asked about the universitties that girl volunteers went to, the church they were staying at and my dogs. Toward the end of the evening, they thanked us for the meal and said we offered good conversation. We arrived at the shelter at 7:00 pm and headed home around 9:30 pm. Grocery planning and shopping accumulated approximately 30 minutes of planning, for a total time investment of 3 hours.


Lessons Learned / Things to Consider

1. Carrots might be too hard for people with bad teeth 
2. Many homeless expected or preferred desserts