Met Council's Volunteers Blog about their Experience!

Up to and during the Thanksgiving holiday, we had a number of volunteer projects. From serving food at a number of our housing sites to, Benefits Outreach as well as cleaning up debris in areas affected by Hurricane Sandy in Staten Island and Kosherfest; there's is indeed much to be grateful for!

We hope that you enjoy reading what Kathy Berry experienced and decided to share with her readers, in turn we look forward to getting more feedback like this from existing as well as new volunteers.

  Gratitude..

                                          Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life.
                                     It turns what we have into enough, and more.
                 It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity.
            It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend.
Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today,and creates a vision for tomorrow.

                                                                - Melody Beatti      

Sunday, I was up and out early, and finally had a nice long walk along the East River.  I had volunteered through Volunteer Match (a great site I found while web-surfing, and they do not require any orientation).  I went to the Linda and Jerome Spitzer Home on 61st Street to help prepare a Thanksgiving Feast for Seniors.  I confused the Doorman and myself upon arrival when asking for the apartment of Mr and Mrs Spitzer.  They do not live there, it’s the building name!  It’s an apartment complex for low-income Seniors.  I always wondered how Seniors could afford Manhattan.  Now I know, the Metropolitan Council on Jewish Poverty (www.metcouncil.org) is one organization that tries to keep them from being displaced.  They have a few buildings around Manhattan, and its Burroughs.

       I spent a lovely morning preparing vegetables with a varied, and great group of Ladies. Stefanie, a young woman who graduated from UMass Amherst with my Daughter (and remembers Kristi’s roommate from a class taken together as she loved Tamar’s name!), is the Volunteer Department Manager of the Met Council.  Monita, was our chef du jour who just left Martha Stewart’s Magazine as the recipe tester, to be on her own as a Culinary Freelancer!  Monita’s Sister, Niece, and French-born Friend rounded out our group of workers.  I would love, and hope, to meet and work with these Ladies again someday.

To read her entire blog click here - Berrys Wild Travels.
To volunteer with Met Council fill out our - Volunteer Questionnaire.