Christmas awesomeness. →[More:]
This Christmas, as I'm staying in the UK, I decided to volunteer at Crisis, which is a charity for the homeless which opens various shelters and day centres across London over the Christmas period. After several organisational fuck-ups from the charity, I ended up at the main rough sleeper's centre in docklands.

I turned up this morning, signed in with all the other volunteers and, after an introductory talk, tasks started to be assigned.

Organisers kept saying "I need ten volunteers" and I'd go over to the group only to find that I was the eleventh, so I felt like the kid at school who nobody wanted to pick for the team. People went off in their groups to do things like make the beds, serve breakfast and clean toilets.

But then, when there was just a few of us left wondering what we would be doing, the woman from the dog shelter came in and said that three out of her four volunteers hadn't shown up, and was there anyone who wanted to work with the dogs.

Hell, yes!

Unlike the general volunteer duties where you're rotated to a new duty every couple of hours, the dog volunteers stay all day, so it's not confusing for the dogs. There were four dogs in residence - a pair of pitbull-type dogs who were together, and they were in a pen at the end. There was a Staffordshire bull terrier, Pixie, who was a sweetheart, and a tiny, 13-year-old Norfolk terrier, Brandy, who I took care of all day. All she wanted was to be cuddled. The dog owners can come in and take their dogs out for a walk, and although Brandy's owner said he'd come and see her, he didn't, so she was a bit fretful and needed a lot of reassurance and attention.

We're in a corner of the warehouse, away from the main centre, so my interaction with the guests (280 of them) was limited, but I didn't care. I was delighted to be on dog duty. I went on a tour later of the main centre, and the dormitory had a cloud of sweaty feet & fart funk over it, so I'm SO glad I was too late to join the bed-making crew this morning...

I'll be on general duties tomorrow, but I'll make sure I go and see Brandy at some point. The chief dog volunteer said that they're usually short-handed on the 26th, so I'll be sure to call into the dog shelter first that day to see if I'm needed before I end up anywhere else.

The other volunteers were great, and we had a good time. The dogs were spoiled with treats and lots of cuddles. After all, it's Christmas for them too :-)