Have you ever volunteered? If so what have you done? I had the opportunity this morning to volunteer my time at Redlands family services. This is something I will continue doing these next couple of weeks. Today being my first day I got to experience the clothing room and if you haven’t ever been to thrift store they can be kind of crazy and messy sometimes. This was no different; there were stacks of clothing everywhere, which was very frustrating to say the least.

After one hour of hanging and organizing clothes the customers started to arrive. This lightened the mood up because they were so grateful of what they were able to take and all of the behind the walls things we could offer for them, specifically if they had babies.

The process of them receiving the clothes was interesting to me. Each person is allotted fifteen minutes to shop around then they much check out. They are also allowed to take fifteen items per family member they have along with one pair of shoes for each person. They are allowed to come in for clothes every two plus weeks. When they enter someone working takes there slip, which has family member information and when the checkout the number of clothing pieces they take is counted and recorded. There could be faults in this, but to me it seemed pretty reasonable and would not lead to many issues.

If you have never volunteered your time I highly encourage you to do so. It can open up your train of though to think in a way you may not have previously. These people brightened my mood and helped me realize I have so much and cannot get upset over small things.