Helping the Homeless

Yesterday, I went to a place in farmington called the Frodsham Farm. It's just this farm that's owned by this cute old couple. I had to wake up at 6:30 (that's early for a Saturday), because we had to be at this farm by 7:30. Well, your probably wondering why I got up that early to go see a bunch of farm animals. Ha ha, I didn't go see farm animals I promise. What we did was we held a huge ServiceProject for homeless people. We arrived at 7:30 to set up everything. We set up in the horse stalls(they got cleared out by the way) with stations. For example we had like five, they were each labeled different things like one was New presents, another was Toys, and the other three were like Food, Hygiene, and General Store. In the New presents station, we handed out wrapped presents to each of the families that came through so that they would have something to open for Christmas. In the food, We set out hundreds of canned foods, and bread, and all of this food that was donated from people so that the needy ones could take what they needed. In the Hygienee section there was just tons of things like toothbrushes, soap, deodarant, shampoo, conditioner, and just tons of stuff. And in the toys, there was just a ton of stuffed animals and different toys that people had donated. Also, in a different part of the farm, they had this field that we completely filled with donated new and used clothing. And then, in the field below that, we set up tables with hot soup, and hot chocolate, we set up place where santa was going to be, and we also set up a place where they had snow rides. By the time we had set all of this stuff up, it was about 11, and after that we just waited. Because at 12:00, the buses would start arriving and we would get ready to let them in. They bused in all these people from homeless shelters in salt lake, and some of them that weren't as homeless but were still needed, drove themselves and their famalies to wait in this huge line to get into this event. Well, when they arrived what we did is they paired up each homeless family with 2 or 3 volunteers. Then we took them around to all of the stations and let them pick out their christmas. It was really great to go and do this for these people, it really helped me realize how lucky I am and how grateful I am for everything I have in my life. Like, yesterday when this certain family came in,not one of them in their family had a pair of gloves. That's one of the main things they wanted too. So when one of my YW leaders came around asking us if we had seen any, knowing that we didn't have any to give them just made my heart sink. I knew that I had lots more at home, and to think that they might not even have so much as a real home to go home to just made me so sad. So I tried to give my gloves up, but my YW told me no, and that it was too cold cause we still have 2 or 3 hours left to be outside. Well, by the end of our little debate, I won. I had finally convinced her by telling her that I have so many more pairs at home and that I won't even be able to notice the cold because I knew I was doing the right thing. So she took my gloves and gave them to the family. It made me really happy to know that I had sacrificed something, even though it wasn't much, for someone who needed it more. So, that's my story for ya. It was really fun and if you ever get a chance to do a big service project, DO IT. It's totally worth it and you'll regret it if you don't!