Sept 22, Thurs

A typical day, get up at 6:30, Gather the people in our group at 7:15 and drive 10 minutes to the church kitchen. We eat a quick breakfast of scrambled eggs, bacon, sausage patties, biscuits and gravy, grits.. no lack of food here!! We then have a meeting at about 8:30, then we get in line and load our food, supplies, etc.. yesterday we had 150 meals for both lunch and dinner but we ran out of food. Today we had 300 meals for each run, and we ran out of food again. Our kitchen #6 region, 10,000+ meals each day! We serve such things as beef stew, pork BBQ's, chicken and it tastes awesome! They cook under huge outdoor awnings and it runs smoothly and efficiently most of the time.

We drive over 22 miles to our route. It takes about 40 minutes to get there. Today we brought supplies to a family with 2 infants. We brought a glucometer to a diabetic and taught her daughter how to help her check her sugar. I brought a portable nebulizer to an asthmatic. Our medical tent has so many supplies we can take out to the people who need them.

We did our morning run, fed so many we did not get a lunch break, we just loaded our ERV and took off for the supper run.

I kidnapped Teresa and took her with us, we are having so much fun!!
Some of the roads we had traveled that morning we could not travel that night because there were already underwater! We drove through 12" of water to get to the men on the shrimp boats at the marina. They won't be able to get out for food by morning. Everyone is so grateful for what we do.

Our day got done at 8:45 tonight, we were way past the time we should have been off the road, but our route is huge so we are usually late. We get back to the hotel exhausted, but feel so good, we are helping SO many people.

Tomorrow we will be serving only one meal, and we need to shut down and take shelter. Hurricane Rita is approaching. The "feeder bands" or "outer rings" are hitting us. The winds are very strong. The transformer on the church blew and power went out. The lines of traffic were so long of people trying to evacuate. We are shutting down the kitchen and will evacuate 30 miles north if needed.

Teresa and I volunteered to be sent to the front line in Texas if Rita hits there, we will find out tomorrow if we need to pack up and leave to be in place before she hits.

I love this job.. I would not hesitate to do this again if needed.. I've never been worked so hard and felt so good about it.

-Sue