We served pie at the Open Door Mission!

A few months ago, the men in my community group served at the Open Door Mission's Samaritan House (If you want to read more about ODM and another group's experience serving, check out this post). The experience was a great opportunity for us to spend time together, while still contributing to a ministry seeking to meet spiritual and physical needs in our city.

When we arrived, we were greeted at the door by a staff member. He gave us a plan for the evening and laid out the roles we would be playing, from doing the final food prep to serving to cleaning. The food was in the final stage or prep when we walked in and was ready to serve! We were never on our own or without direction -- which alleviated any anxiety we had about how we could be most effectively utilized.

The dinner for the evening was turkey and gravy with all the fixings (potatoes, cornbread/rolls, etc). Some of our team of guys plated the food while others brought the food to the tables and served it to the guests. And the dessert we served matched the theme as well -- apple pie! We wiped down the tables prior to dinner and washed dishes at its conclusion. The entire prep, meal, and clean-up time lasted about 2 hours.

Colin plating some butter for those rolls!

Our main role for the evening was to handle the manual labor of the meal service to allow the staff of the mission to focus on engaging directly with the guests. It was an excellent introductory opportunity to serving, but the mission does have lots of other ways to serve, some of which would allow you to invest more directly in the lives of those who use the available services.

The guys from our group loved the experience and we look forward to serving this way again at least monthly throughout the year!

You can learn more about the Open Door Mission by going to their website and signing up to serve is as simple as reading through the available opportunities and filling out a brief online form. If you do serve, please let Northridge Serves know by emailing them at agencyrep.northridge@gmail.com -- they would love to hear about your experience!