It was a bright and hot sunny day when I walked into the Ealing soup kitchen. The temperature was bearable inside the building. I positioned myself to prepare the snack bags as usual.

John, a volunteer at the soup kitchen, was making small bags of chocolates. He called them prescription chocolates. I ripped open the Nakd bars from the boxes and took out the kefir drinks from the packages and counted them out. Like previous times we had to make 90 snack bags. I then joined John in making the chocolate bags.

In the meantime, Liz noted down our preferences for tea and put the list on the kitchen counter.

When we started making snack bags, we noticed that the bags were bin bags and not carry bags. Emma then went inside and got us the right bags for the job. We were going at a steady pace. After 50+ bags we ran out of crisps. Emma then made snack bags of cupcakes she magically brought out of nowhere.

In the clothing section Mary, another volunteer, took out a long piece of cloth and was discussing with John what that might be. I told them it was a Saree. The saree looked beautiful and the tag remained intact.

Then Mary started making tea. I supported her and served tea to everyone. Liz was planning to do that role. But I got ahead of her. Most of us had Nakd bar to go with the tea.

After moving the snack bags near the serving table, I started labeling the clothes along with Matt. Matt then took out a bundle of paper that had information about free food services available in Ealing. The Monday night Ealing soup kitchen will be closed for 4 weeks for renovation from the 15th of September to the 14th of October. We were placing the notice sheet along with the grocery bags when Sevan arrived for his 401.