Giving Back by Supporting the Meet and Eat Diner Programme

I recently had the privilege of carrying out my CSR day at the community centre in Normanton serving hot meals to people in social isolation, as part of their Meet and Eat Dinner programme .

My day began at 10am when I joined several other volunteers who helped every week or when they were able to. Everyone had their own job to do, and it worked like a well-oiled cog.

There was Sally who worked on teas and coffees and Geoff who worked in the kitchen with Bob, they were on washing and on drying up duties.

Sally was the character and star or the show. I found out she was 80 years old and always dressed to impress. She was like a glam gran and was so entertaining.

The first job of the day was to erect the tables and then dress them with the cutlery.

At lunch time, the doors opened, and the diners took to their regular tables. The place started to fill up quite quickly and the noise levels increased.

We are all appointed our own tables and I went over to talk to the diners, introducing myself and explaining where I worked and why I was there. They were all very friendly and extremely grateful for my assistance.

I made sure they all had a drink and took their meal orders while still having a chat and a bit of banter with them all.

When all the diners had finished their meals, all the volunteers had a bite to eat too which was nice as I was able to gather more details as to the background as to how the place was set up in the first place, who’s idea it was and how often they helped etc. Most were volunteers and some also had part time jobs. They were a great bunch of people.

When the diners had finished their meals and had deserts, they began to dwindle away and go on their onward journeys.

It was then time to clear up, clearing the tables etc, everyone had their own jobs to do, and it worked well. When the diners had all left, the tables were taken down and put away and the floor swept.

We all had a brief chat about how the service had gone and then went on our onwards journeys ourselves.

It was a very rewarding day, being able to do something for people and for some of them, this was their only outing of the week, a free warm meal and a social gathering, catching up with their friends.

I’m grateful to Minster for giving me the opportunity to take part in this programme, it felt good to give something back to the community and to be able to chat and bring a smile to these people’s faces.