Just Harvest

Walking into the cafeteria styled space, I felt intimidated. Though the Stevenson students made up for a majority of the volunteers, the idea of talking with people whom I didn't know and whom were homeless made me nervous. What if I said the wrong thing? What if I ran out of things to talk about? What if I offend them? These questions floated around in my head as I adorned an apron and manned my station.

As people filed through the doors, I began to dish out menus and conversation, my nerves eased. I was surprised that time progressed the table a had picked to personally converse with was full of generally well read mean and women who were able to recommend books of a wide array to me. We discussed environmental issues, books, movies other topics that were not as difficult as I thought they would be. Coming in, I had made assumptions that being homeless equated being uneducated, but that was absolutely untrue.

As the room got more full, we began to serve meals. Though I didn't necessarily have time to have heart to hearts with the people eating,I still felt that I could tell people how much I appreciated being here by giving them a smile and, "Enjoy!" as I handed them their meal. 

By the time the room cleared out my cheeks hurt from smiling so much. I had this light feeling in my chest, a natural high, you could call it. I felt as if I could do anything, climb a mountain, saving a cat from a burning building, or even take over Atlas's job! I had an unbelievable sense of accomplishment that showed from my inability to stop smiling to my continual mentioning of the people I met because To me it really 'just' a harvest, it was so much more!