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New Volunteers Share Experiences, Impressions of the Human Outreach Team

Photo: Ginette (Gin) Heroux, left, and Cathy Campbell, right

Gin and I are new to St. Pete and new to King of Peace. I was fortunate to get a buy-out from my previous employer, and we decided to look at Tampa/St. Petersburg as a potential place in which to relocate and find new work.

Both of us had spent more than ten years (albeit sporadically) volunteering with the Dinner Program for Homeless Women (DPHW) in Washington, DC – Gin has been a professional chef, so she enjoys cooking (I enjoy eating, so we’re a good pair!). We were very pleased to learn that King of Peace participated in a similar program. And as it happened, the week that I came to St. Pete fishing for a job was a week in which the HOT team was serving at St. Vincent de Paul!

Steve, Jeanne and Cate from King of Peace made me feel very welcome as a newcomer, and I felt right at home pitching in where I could.

I am very favorably impressed by the St. Vincent de Paul program and by the spirit and organization of the King of Peace volunteers. Too often our experience at DPHW was one of poor organization (DPHW had a hard time adjusting to the varying levels of both the number and skill sets of their volunteers).  And although the program served women and children, the clients could at times be quite disagreeable (one of the first things I noticed was how “nice” the homeless folks here are – perhaps it’s the sunshine!).

Steve asked me to share a little more about DPHW and it’s components.

In addition to providing meals, DPHW trained qualifying client participants to be culinary assistants and cooks through a paid intern program.  The interns  worked closely with the paid chefs and the volunteers in preparing meals.  It was a rugged training program, teaching technical skills as well as job skills (importance of being on time and working scheduled hours).  At the end of the internship program, interns were given resume preparation assistance and pre-paid cell phones to help  contact potential employers.

DPHW had other pieces, too:
• Formal and informal “information” programs, including “how to” receive other social services
• Weekly bingo games with prizes including donated toiletries, cosmetics, handbags, books, and children’s toys
• Entertainment
• Facilities for laundry and showers
• A paid staff including an executive director, client service associate, volunteer coordinator, chef, sous chef and client interns.

Again, I cannot say enough about how welcoming and how easy the volunteer experience was for me as a newcomer on the HOT team at St. Vincent de Paul.
Gin has finally arrived in St. Pete, too, and we look forward to meeting more King of Peace folks through volunteering!