this past saturday, we participated in service day at st. clement!

it was an all day event that turned out amazing!

we started out by heading out to st. clement, by 10:30 am.   team captains were required to get there early so we could greet all our volunteers.  we walked inside and found our sign and assigned pew.  we waited, patiently, for all our teammates to arrive.  one by one, we greeted everyone.  it was great to chat and get to know one another before we started our prayer service.

fr. ken started our short prayer service and reinforced our thoughts for the day.  how important it is to pray, serve, and give, st. clement’s mission statement.

after that, we headed on our way over to bishop conway residency.  we piled ourselves into two cars, jaimie {who so graciously volunteered} was our second driver.  the traffic down fullerton was obnoxious {as to be expected!}.

what felt like forever later, we finally arrived at our destination.  we walked in and jaimie, kelly, and jen were already waiting for us.  we received a cute little wooden box {painted and decorated} as a gift from the residences, which was so nice!

we headed downstairs and i found aixa, the head cook, and introduced myself to her.  we needed to eat lunch, so she showed us a room we could sit down in and eat.  after, lunch we headed back into the kitchen to start working!  aixa had us clean up.  we cleared plates, glasses, food.  some of us did the dishes, a few swept and mopped.  the boys took out garbage.  we set the tables for dinner.  we prepped food for later.  after all the clean up and prep, we then played games with any of the residences in the game room.

there was uno, dominos, and rummy going on!  kelly and i joined a group playing rummy.  we watched, we learned, we asked a lot of questions.  our group was so funny.  especially robert and linda.  oh, did they love to bicker!  linda felt robert made up his own rules and robert was always eagle eyeing everyone to make sure they weren’t cheating!  bernadette seemed to be sleeping the whole time {although she wasn’t and was funny and kind}.  charlie was a serious player with a knack of not enunciating any of his words and rosita, who i sat next to as well, was so stinkin’ sweet!  she constantly smiled at me and always included me in everything.

after several rounds, robert asked if i wanted to play.  i was still confused because it seemed like they made rules up as they went!  but i was biddable, so i agreed and here i went with my first game of rummy!  it was great, rosita helped me out a lot.  time really flew by and before we knew it, we had to leave and head back to st. clement for the 5 pm mass.  it was sad to go, we had so much fun!

we then went upstairs and had our time for reflection.  i led the prayer and provoked our thoughts.  how did we feel?  how did we see the lord’s goodness in today’s events?  i quivered a bit while reading, it got a little emotional for me!  as we left, the officer in the front handed out little handmade thank you cards from the residences!  it was so cute!

our trip back was quicker and we got there with plenty of parking left {smallest parking lot for a really big parish!}.  we all sat together for mass and the group volunteered me to walk in the procession!  ha, no one wanted to, so of course, they said, ‘you’re the team captain, you do it!”.  so i went to the vestibule, grabbed our sign {each sign had the location of the place we volunteered at} and waited for the procession into the church to start.  all the little kids, who participated in service day, went first {they planted their ‘fans’ into the pots around the alter} and i led the group of sign holders into the procession.

after the wonderful mass, that was led by fr. manny, we heading into the school for dinner {beer, wine, pop, pizza, pasta, bread, salad, + dessert}!  it was so great to mingle, see everyone, and really revel in the day’s activities.

[cinco de mayo decor]

[sweeping and mopping! kelly..rich..tammy..jen]

[allison + jaimie doing the dishes]

[allison, eric, + jen playing dominos]

[bridget + jaimie playing uno with perl // she was sassy!]

[kelly watching the rummy game // linda is to the left and bernadette to her right]

[rummy]

[handmade thank you cards from the residences]

[dinner at the school]

[rich + i are dead center, three rows down from the top!]

it was such a wonderful day.  it was so fulfilling, fun, happy, joyous, and a very humbling time.  the biggest service day to date, 400+ participated this year!

give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. 1thessalonians 5:18

xoxo