Day 26 -- Delivering mugs to Miriam's Kitchen

"Give what you have. To someone, it may be better than you dare think."
---Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Hurray -- I'm moving into the second quarter of this 100 day journey!!

Today I delivered about 100 sturdy coffee mugs to Miriam's Kitchen, a place that provides meals and services to homeless people in Washington DC in an atmosphere of dignity and respect. In fact Michelle Obama volunteered here recently, and praised the organization for the great work that they do.

I had collected the mugs from a declutterization (is that a word? seems like it should be!) of a couple of my kitchen cabinets and from a generous mom in the MoverMoms group. Driving down was a bit inconvenient, but I made it before rush hour, got to listen to my new Spanish tapes (trying for about the 4th time to learn this language!) and got to see a few nice neighborhoods downtown (I took a couple of wrong turns) .

I realized how important the transportation component of volunteering is -- without a viable way of moving stuff from one location to another, how could so many useful collection drives take place?

This homeless services center is located in a church near the upscale Watergate Hotel and the Kennedy Center. Sad that in the backdrop of this wealth is a place where homeless people flock. But it's an excellent place, with a well-established breakfast program, Case Management Program, and After-breakfast program.

After delivering the mugs, I was ready to start collecting something else (or to volunteer there at some point) so asked for a list of items needed. Among other things, they need men's underwear and will accept it used....as the woman said when I inquired about that "if someone doesn't have any underwear and a pair that's in good shape is given to them they will accept it." What a potent reminder of how unfair the world is. Fortunately each of us can do our part to try to rectify that...