Mission Monday

Rarely do I get up before the sunrise except to use the bathroom and go back to sleep. Never do I get up before the sunrise on vacation and stay up. Somehow my friend Warren convinced me to change my ways and get up at 4:35 AM this morning to go with him to his church to serve breakfast. It turned out to be one of the most fun vacation activities.
Warren has been volunteering with about a dozen other people to provide a free, hot cooked to order breakfast to anyone who wanted to show up at the Camden Baptist church on Monday morning, no string attached. It is a fellowship which is highly appreciated and badly needed in a place that appears to have much.
Warren is committed to arriving with the early crew to set up, prep food and serve breakfast then clean up. He “got permission” for me to be a guest server. Turns out that a few high school students didn’t show up to work and I was badly needed. It was fun to get to play “waitress.”

“Hi, I’m Dana. Welcome to breakfast. Our special today is overnight French toast with or without blue berries. Can I get you a drink while you look over the menu?” I said as I handed each guest a lamented menu offering eggs, made any way, omelets with your choice of cheese, onions, peppers, mushrooms, bacon, sausage; homemade Warren made home fries, oatmeal with brown sugar, cinnamon, blueberries, or walnuts, English muffins, white or wheat toast, bacon, sausage, the special of the day, yogurt or cereal. The drinks are equally plentiful and all for free.  
After getting a guest the drink or drinks of their choice I took their order on a preprinted slip of paper that made it easier for the kitchen to understand the orders. Warren was the kitchen expeditor so I turned the slips into him with a friendly, “order in!” When it was completed he called out “order up,” and one of us three servers would deliver the food. We also cleared tables, refilled coffee and reset tables.  
The head of this well oiled machine Sue had her ten year son, Joe with her today. He was eager to help. I quickly saw the value he provided and he became my sidekick. “Joe, can you fill me two coffees?” I would say as I also handed him plates to be scraped and stacked in the dish pan. He was a god send.
Today was a special day where breakfast ran from 6:30 – 10:00 and there were two hairdressers who came and offered free haircuts as well as a table with things like soap, socks, tooth brushes and other personal items for guests to take home. 26 people got haircut after their breakfast.

After most people had eaten the kitchen crew came out and sang a song Warren wrote for the guests still assembled. I won’t say a thing about their singing, but it was very festive.  
When it was all said and done we had fed 96 people to be exact, a record number for this breakfast. Although I was totally exhausted from drying all the silverware, since the breakfast is served on real dishes, I really liked being a waitress. I might starting going by “Flo.”