LOTS of Serving...

Yesterday, we did LOTS of serving and today we will be serving as well! Yesterday was an absolutely FUN day! The fun started as we were on our way to the DC Central Kitchen, where they serve 4500 people a day! More on that later... we posed for pics in the fancy new CoJ/C2 youth shirts. Then the second bus driver helped us get where we were going even though his bus didn't get there. Then it was serving time...

After orientation, where we were told about this kitchen being the source of food for 4500 people in DC a day, we were each assigned a chef to work with... actually there were 4 or so chefs. Christian, Kevin and I cut up 100 pounds of potatoes, made a potatoe and carrots dish, filled pans with baked chicken for distribution, loaded pans with hotdogs, and helped to package the potatoes and carrots for distribution. Miss Tami, helped cut onions, cucumbers and to make cole-slaw. Miss Belinda was promoted to assistant to the chef and she monitored the ovens (approximately 10) and made a homemade soup (chicken and rice). Caroline, Brittany, and Kayla made two days worth of breakfast sandwiches.... for this morning and tomorrow. They made more than our Chef Mike though they would make!

Chef Mike was totally IMPRESSED with our group! AWESOME bunch of willing servants! I was TOTALLY PROUD of them!

After all that, about 12:15 we ate there with the other group from Kansas, who came to serve.

The DC Central Kitchen has a motto to cook as if for your family. They are the supplier of food to most of the DC region's soup kitchens and they also feed the residents in the shelter that is above the kitchen. The kitchen is a top notch commercial kitchen where they also operate a catering business from. They employ chefs and drivers... the drivers take the food to the shelters each day in nice box vans. They are funded by grants, in kind donations, and the profits from the catering business. It was founded by Robert Egger who then wrote a book (which I bought several years ago, but haven't read, indeed I will now though!)

Here is what the description on Amason.com says about DC Central "You are a good person. You are one of the 84 million Americans who volunteer with a charity. You are part of a national donor pool that contributes nearly $200 billion to good causes every year. But you wonder: Why don't your efforts seem to make a difference?

Fifteen years ago, Robert Egger asked himself this same question as he reluctantly climbed aboard a food service truck for a night of volunteering to help serve meals to the homeless. He wondered why there were still people waiting in line for soup in this day and age. Where were the drug counselors, the job trainers, and the support team to help these men and women get off the streets? Why were volunteers buying supplies from grocery stores when restaurants were throwing away unused fresh food every night? Why had politicians, citizens, and local businesses allowed charity to become an end in itself? Why wasn't there an efficient way to solve the problem?

Robert knew there had to be a better way. In 1989, he started the D.C. Central Kitchen by collecting unused food from local restaurants, caterers, and hotels and bringing it back to a central location where hot, nutritious meals were prepared and distributed to agencies around the city."

After serving... we went through the Holocost Museum... what a SAD and AWEFUL tragedy that memorializes... we were very numb when we finished walking through the main exhibit for 2 hours.

Then it was out to get rained on and supper and then fireworks near the Whitehouse and Washington Monument. Afterward, we waited for nearly an hour and 3/4 for a bus. Tami and I took advantage of the wait to do a photo op at the whitehouse... George and Larua didn't invite us in!

SORRY this is so long and the pics are out of order!