Start Volunteering in Rythms Of Life

After two months of careful and patient communication, from this month, I am finally able to volunteer for homelessness chariy—-Rythms of Life

Rythms of Life is found by a former rough sleeper in London. This makes this charity group very special. It mainly provides food supports to homeless people on the street, everyday.

I worked as chef in its office, cooking food for homeless people. I work with the kitchen team to make soup, sandwiches, and prepare different kinds of hot food, such as pizza and roasts. The raw materials are all kinds of donation from the local supermarket, which are abundant. “You never expect what you can get eh”, “Try this, Creme Fraiche eh!…use knife…quick..taste very, very good” saids Martin, the chief chef. Martin is a tall, thin and mascular man from eastern Europe, his English is a thick Slavia soup. With a steady hand and a fork, he flat out the cheese evenly on the bread, quick and dry.

The working in the office are fast-paced and arduous. Each person have to spend an afternoon to cut vegetables, cook and pack 50-60 sandwiches, 35 portions of speghattis, 30 portions of roast, a big pot of vegetable soup and categorise food into vegan and non-vegan, and laborious dish washing. Then all the food will be delivered by a van to city centre to feed the public. One of my colleagus Dawn was an old lady, she collaborated with me to make sandwiches one day. She was suffered from the backade during the work due to long period of standing and leaning down on food table. She had moved to a ergonomic chair to continue her work. Dawn had served in kitchen for a year, “Many volunteers just served once in food preperation and move to street to do food distribution…..oh…”.

I was lucky that I can meet Andrea, the founder of the charity. Andrea is meticulously organised. He is passionate about our business. Everytime he came in the office, he will check the quality of food, the usability of cooking appliance, the electronic meter, the functions of hop, and asked a variety of questions to us. Also, he look around to every corners of the room, slightly frowned, make sure there is nothing problematic in the mindmap. Made himself like an owl.

One day, He came to the big pot and lick a tiny bit of soup in spoon, think the soup we cooked was too strong. He asked me to bring him a butter, and my name, “oh you are Felix, easy peasy!”. He put a 3/4 of a butter in the soup, tenderly stired around, and asked us what spices had put, to make sure its right recipe. Soon, the butter and aroma started to flow. “Beauty in things exists merely in the mind which comtemplates them.”, I recalled.

Also, I met a lot of friends. My colleagues are urban professionals in secondary sectors of economy. For example, in tourist, education, civil servant, civil engineer, retailing, website design, journalist, government and master student. They are literally from different parts of the society.

During my work for charity, I am able to ask my colleague questions about homelessness, and the charity. For example:

Do you know Why homelessness happened?

“They are lack of support from government….now it is going to cut universal credit…It is hard.”——-Alice(a primary school teacher)

“The covid, makes a lot of business to shut down… many industry cease to work even not exist anymore…”——-Jack(a civiled engineer)

“I don’t know…..It is so difficult to understand….”——-Ben(a tourist guide)

“It can happen to anyone,bad luck I think? Nowadays it is so unpredictable, so undercontrolled…”——-Jack(a civiled engineer)

“The problem is, it can happen to anyone now………….I think he needs more volunteers, usually he had a chef working for him but he is gone, how can we find the new vounteers?”——-Martin(a chef)

“No. There are no homeless people in this area I think.”——–Shenny(a English teacher)

“I think homeless people are stigmatised by drug use….Today I watch ITV, that sleeky toff told us do not give money to homeless people because they will use money to buy drugs….but when you are in homeless you are more eager to survive, if they want to live in a better place then we should give support. Why they focus on critisising them using drugs? I mean many people did too.”—-Jane(A softwear designer)

Why you work in this charity?

“This is a good way to pass time.”——-Jane(a journalist)

“I can relaxed, get away from stressful work, what a relief.”——-Adam(a software developer)

“I can meet up new friends and socialising, and we are now doing some good deeds for the community.”——-Giorgia(a graphic designer)

“Well, it is a good practice to meet some new friends. And I think this is a good way to help homeless people”——-David(charity practitioner)

Untill now, I can seethere are of the volunteers come to charity for meeting friends and socialising. There are always two sides on this. In one side, it can be benefitial for people to work in the charity as a form to get away from stressful daily and make new friends. But this is not benefit to charity since people are too busy to relax themselves and not concentrate during their work, and this can cause troubles for volunteers on the the following day to sort out, for example, the unwashed dishes, uncleaned desk.

However, these few days, I am still suprised to see the achievement of the organisation that provide so much genuine support to the public. And I feel very positive to continue my work in such an great environment in the future.