I just started my first weeklong vacation in over a year. Ask me anything!

[meganmonkey]

:D :beer: :party:

(btw, it may look like a beer here, but in real life it's Jamesons on the rocks)

[mark11727]

1. Where ya goin'?

[meganmonkey]

4. Tuesday-Saturday I'm going to Florida

to beat up some non-voters. No, actually to see my folks who just moved down there. The rest of the time I'm hanging around home (Michigan)

[skygazer]

2. Why are you still on the computer?

Get out and enjoy it! :party:

[Sabriel]

3. I was just going to ask that

What the hell are you doing on DU?

[meganmonkey]

5. To answer you both, I am exhausted

Tonight I am chillin'. Drink a little, smoke a little, watch a flick with my SO, stay up late.

I work at a hunger relief agency so the last couple weeks (pre-Thanksgiving) have whooped my ass. It seems that most people think poor folks are only hungry during the holidays so they all do food drives in November.

[skygazer]

6. It's not that they think that's the only time they're hungry

It's because they are giving to make themselves feel better, not because they actually have any long term concern for those in tough circumstances.

I used to volunteer at a "soup kitchen" - we would scrape for volunteers throughout the entire year and then have to turn away hordes of people who wanted to volunteer during the holidays. I'd tell them to come back after January because we'd really need them then but only a fraction ever did.

Sad. Thanks for doing what you do. :toast:

[meganmonkey]

7. Thanks for volunteering!

It's kinda funny/sad - we also run a Community Kitchen at the homeless shelter downtown. I have gotten dozens of calls from people who want to work there on Thanksgiving Day. So I tell them it is literally the one day of the year that we are closed (a local restaurant traditionally does a big Thanksgiving feast for the hungry), but we would love to have them volunteer any other time. Not a single one of them has taken me up on that offer. It's sorta depressing. Sometimes I just want to tell them to write a check for $50 and mail it to us - it would be much easier than actually going out of their way to help and it would help alleviate their guilt. Plus they'd get a federal and state tax credit.
Fortunately we have literally hundreds of regular, consistent volunteers, and rotating groups, so we're almost always covered.