First of all, shout of to my good friend Cassey Reid for being my right hand in all of this! I couldn't have done it with out her! Also a big shout out to my Mom, Grandparents, Aunt Beverly, Uncle Ed & Heather, Jennifer Witt & Pam! This also could not have been accomplished (without my bank account freaking out) without them!
For those of you who have no idea what I'm talking about, just go back and read my previous blog post from November and update yourself! Then come back here!
The photographs went really well, the first day was the biggest day and I photographed Christmas portraits of many different people with many different backgrounds. The majority of the people who attended suffered from a mental and or physical disability. This hits home because in my eyes and in my heart, these people should be taken care of first and foremost. It hurts to come to terms with the fact that they were having to attend the soup kitchen for a meal.
Several things kept the spirit alive and the humor rolling! I brought a total of 4 santa hats for people and/or children to wear in their photographs (ya know, for fun...everyone loves wearing a Santa hat!) Whenever this particular group came in, they made it very clear with me that they were not leaving the set unless they could take the Santa hat with them. Let's just say by the time I finished...Morgan had 0 Santa hats left and those who didn't get a chance to take one, were just glaring at their peers with envy!
Those Santa hats man....hot commodity!
I finished up, went home and came back and did the same thing again the next week. The photographs went out on Christmas Eve! We did Christmas photos for almost 100 people/families. On Christmas Eve I went to the soup kitchen and to be quite honest, I was just as happy or even more so to be there on that day! I had to work Christmas Eve night, so I was bummed that I was going to be alone and away from my family the entire day! I barely even had time to feel sad because I had the most DELICIOUS meal that ever entered by belly that very day, along with possibly the most entertaining company!
Accompanying me on my left was one of the most intelligent and polite 10 year old girl that I have ever met and to my right was my dear friend that I met while doing Christmas photos. He gave me updates on his 3 legged dog (aka his whole world) and his family that he misses so much, but hasn't spoken to in over 20 years.
I'll end with this - I learned that Soup Kitchen's typically get overwhelmed with help around the holidays. I've made it a goal to volunteer at least 2 Mondays per month from now on. Why not? It's awesome!
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