Voice of Volunteer: Bill
After retiring from a full professional life as a massage therapist and vocational counselor, Bill knew that he wanted to stay busy and keep a sense of purpose in his life by volunteering. He learned about Holy Apostles Soup Kitchen at a volunteer fair and has become a familiar face ever since.
“I signed up for volunteering here, and I’ve never needed to volunteer anywhere else,” Bill remarks, “There’s something for everybody here. At first I volunteered five days a week, doing different things. When I started, I usually had the job of carrying the trays back to the kitchen.”
These days, even though he’s volunteering, “only two or three days a week”, Bill’s one of the first volunteers here on those mornings. That’s because as an Assistant Volunteer Coordinator, his job is to welcome the approximately sixty others volunteers, introduce new ones to the soup kitchen, and assign each of them one of the many jobs that’s essential to making the two-hour meal run smoothly.
“It’s a privilege to be here,” Bill says, “I like helping to welcome volunteers and make them feel comfortable.”
The Soup Kitchen has become the bedrock in Bill’s day-to-day life and his consistent presence helps not only our volunteers feel comfortable, but gives our guests that sense of community and stability that can be so hard to find elsewhere in their lives.
“It’s a great social place for me, that’s important,” Bill remarks. “The other volunteers are important to me, socially. They’ve become my friends. And you know there are guests who start to volunteer. That’s always great to see happen.”
