Definitely nutritious

Today was one of the stranger days in my 6 months at the Ruth Ellis Center. There was a snowstorm which began last night and ended about noon. I shoveled about 2 inches from my driveway after lunch. The roads were passable by the time I left home after 4:00. Due to the storm, though, there weren't many kids at the center. When I got there it was obvious no one had started fixing supper. Soon April bustled in saying nobody had done the grocery shopping. She and Clenay (another staff person) poked through the cupboards and pulled out cans of soup. I spotted the peanut butter and got jelly out of the refrigerator. Monty opened up the large box of donuts (maybe three dozen), while declaring them to be at least 2, maybe 3 days old. He also got out the large bag of onion-garlic bagels (his favorite, but just as old), but we moved them aside when I complained of the smell (much to my dad's dismay I don't like onion). April's instructions were simple. If and when the kids are hungry, offer to make up some soup or assemble a sandwich. She went off to do paperwork. There were a few times it got busy with a couple kids asking for something at the same time, but mostly I sat in the kitchen reading a book. Some kids thought a donut was enough, though they requested it be heated in the microwave. We were out of plastic gloves (again) so I stuck my hand in a sandwich baggie before grabbing a donut. I used all of 1 ½ cans of soup. One of the kids wanted peanut butter and jelly, but not on a bagel (even a plain one). I found the bag containing loaves of bread, also about 3 days old, and hacked off a couple slices, being generous with the jelly. I served maybe 8 kids all evening, a huge contrast to the 60 kids the previous day when they were understaffed. At 7:00 I put the food away and left at 7:30. I'm usually there until they close at 9:00, but when I left there were 4 kids and a few staff still there.