Just did my first City Mission run.
Mission run? What’s that you might ask? Are you going around offering help to the many homeless living out on the streets here in Chch?
No, that’s on the retirement list. However, my retirement is some time away (having looked at the poor state of my finances!) and I’ve been wanting to do something for others for a while now. Naturally life has gotten in the way. Full time work, study, socialness (new word), housework…oh wait I don’t do that very often, MOD does the ‘hoovering’ and maybe the shopping, says he loves it. Working with the homeless is a definite for retirement. We all have stories and there are some sad ones out there.
But I read about The Mish on Yammer, that’s our local social networking service used for private communication here at Council. It works well.
The City Mission run, or The Mish as it’s called, is a volunteer group of cyclists who get up that little bit early, take to their bikes and pick up left over food from inner city cafés for delivery to the City Mission.
I duly got up that little bit early – 5am to be pacific (as my old boss would say) – and took to the streets. Of the eight cafés I visited, they all gave me a huge bag of goodies. Not having had breakfast I was licking my lips but I can tell you with absolute certainty that every single item went to the Mission for the guys there.
I must admit to being a little scared about actually dropping the goods off. Me being a single woman blah blah blah, but the guys were just lovely and interested, and polite and kind.
If you get a chance to do something altruistic, my advice to you is do it.
It’s a pretty damn good feeling let me tell you.
Can’t wait for my next one.
MaureenBetty 