Karma Yoga Work at the Urban Bliss Yoga Studio
by Kirstie Markey, former Yoga Teacher Training Student
From the beginning of the class, our group had some great ideas for our Karma Yoga Project, but we just had trouble getting it off the ground. When we decided to offer ourselves into service at the Mooresville Soup Kitchen, I thought it was a really good idea, but didn’t know what to expect. I guess I figured we’d walk in, dish out the food then head home feeling good about ourselves for spending time “helping” these people who are down on their luck. So I was a little surprised when I contacted the director of the Mooresville Soup Kitchen and she told me that our volunteer days would consist of cooking, setting up, serving, and cleaning up. The actual serving is a very small part of what we were going to be doing. I signed us up for three days work – 2 meal days and 1 day of cleaning.
Our first day was interesting, fun, and exhausting! We cooked about 50 lbs. of pork tenderloin – a challenge for those of us who are vegetarians. I reminded myself, though, not to feel so high and mighty about my food choices. These people have no food choices – and if I were hungry, I would no doubt eat what was available – even if that meant canned vegetables (which I find even harder to think about eating than eating meat) and animal flesh. So we cooked and cooked and cooked…
Our “crew chief” was named Geraldine, an older woman who has been volunteering there for over 20 years. She was a hoot!! She singled me out as the “older one” in the group and asked me to make cucumber salad – which fortunately I do at home all the time – and was able to make do with the ingredients I had available. She also asked if I would mind taking home some stew beef and cooking it up for our next visit when we would be having beef stew. Of course I said yes, and for the first time in my life spent-literally- over 2 hours browning 20 lbs. of beef in my kitchen!
As it got closer to time to serve and we all weren’t stressing and just going about doing our thing getting ready, she commented several times on how chilled out we were. I think our calm minds and spirits were stressing her out! J Despite her concerns, we were ready with some time to spare and got everyone (162 people) fed.
Afterwards, cleanup was intense. Wow!! I didn’t know we had used so much stuff to cook, then we had to wash those warming pans, our cooking pots and utensils, scrub down the kitchen, sweep and mop the floors and take out the trash. We were all exhausted, but happy and – I think - impressed with ourselves and the mission of the soup kitchen. They feed anyone and everyone who comes – no questions asked! Awesome!!
We did a second round a week or so later – this time Geraldine left us pretty much to our own devices! And guess what, she was pleased. We had everything prepped and ready to go with 45 minutes to spare. We also cleaned up as we went a little more this time so our clean up at the end went a little more quickly. This time we served 180. In July, the kitchen served 4,011 meals!
This past Saturday we did some deep cleaning and a small project or two – changing signs, writing thank you notes to donors. We scrubbed with bleach, cleaned greasy vents, cleaned bathrooms, washed baseboards, etc. To be honest, I wasn’t looking forward to going on Saturday, and actually was feeling guilty about my attitude. Once we got there, I was fine, got down to working and was enjoying chatting while we worked. When I sat down to work on the thank you notes and I saw the number – 4,011 – who were fed there in July, it changed my heart completely. What an incredible undertaking these people have committed their lives to and it was very cool to be a small part of that this month.
In addition to the Soup Kitchen, we collected donations for the Mooresville Christian Mission. I went through my closets and pantry and pulled out things that I no longer needed, but had plenty of useful life left for another. Others in our class did the same, as did many who come to the studio to practice. I expect we’ll be dropping our donations at the Mission later this week.
