![\"070916-1\"](\"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/070916-1-1.jpg\")
\nHoliday Decorations outside of a Key Wey Senior Center Plaza apartment <\/p>\n
Life and Island Times July 9 2016: Cooking With Love \u2013 A Christmas Story <\/p>\n
This is from December 2013. <\/p>\n
———————————————————– <\/p>\n
Team members awoke early today, since the Metropolitan Community Church\u2019s Cooking With Love program volunteers would be delivering Christmas meals to 130 souls across their island town. As Marlow opened the front doors to the church, the air was full of the comforting aromas of a pork chop, escalloped potatoes and green bean-mushroom casserole dinner. Today\u2019s chefs, Charlie and Rita, along with Charlie\u2019s kitchen bitch Charles must have gotten in before dawn, since the meal was ready for plating earlier than normal. <\/p>\n
Marlow expected they would be short-handed since many of the on-island helpers were on the mainland with family, and the snowbird volunteers had yet to arrive for the season. Santa must have put the call out, since their numbers miraculously swelled just as the CWL elves started meal assembly. The Styrofoam containers bent with plentiful deliciousness, while the bags bulging with groceries destined for almost half of the homes were laid out on the floor with care. <\/p>\n
The year\u2019s Christmas meal was donated in memory of Charlie\u2019s late husband Richard. His larger than life presence and stalwart support of MCC was celebrated as they walked through the assembly line. One volunteer laughingly retold the story of how Richard set the MCC kitchen afire almost burning down the building. <\/p>\n
There were just enough drivers with cars to assign to each of the routes but not enough helpers. Marlow had route two (the first two floors of the Senior Center) and had delivered it before solo. Today\u2019s bountiful delivery would be a tad slower due to weight and the normal exchange of holiday greetings in many languages at the door of each apartment. <\/p>\n
\nHoliday Decorations outside of a Key Wey Senior Center Plaza apartment <\/p>\n
He had barely begun his deliveries, when this year\u2019s island Christmas present arrived early. Marlow stopped after the second of five turns on the first floor at a long-time customer\u2019s apartment – Cindy Williams in #114. In response to his knock, she arrived quickly at the door and told him that she would be taking her neighbor Captain Frank\u2019s meal as well. The three meals and two bags of groceries were so heavy that Marlow lugged them into Cindy\u2019s kitchen. As he turned to drag his overflowing carts down the sidewalk, she whispered that she had something for CWL. It was an envelope with Christmas wishes and a gift to the program. This seventy one year old, twenty year resident of the Senior Center did not have two pots to piss in yet still scrimped to make her donation. <\/p>\n
She then offered to assist Marlow in his deliveries. Cindy confided that she had spied him alone unloading his car through her \u201cwindow on the world\u201d and thought she would offer to help. As many may not know, she was legally blind and quite unsteady on her feet. Just to be safe, Marlow put her in the lead and followed close behind to catch her if Cindy commenced to topple. She was cheerful, fabulous and smiled broadly when many of her neighbors commented on their surprise to see her out and about. <\/p>\n
This brought tears to Marlow\u2019s eyes. May it do the same to yours. <\/p>\n
![\"070916-2\"](\"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/070916-2.jpg\")
\nCindy making her rounds <\/p>\n
Copyright \u00a9 2016 From My Isle Seat <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Life and Island Times July 9 2016: Cooking With Love \u2013 A Christmas Story This is from December 2013. ———————————————————– Team members awoke early today, since the Metropolitan Community Church\u2019s Cooking With Love program volunteers would be delivering Christmas meals to 130 souls across their island town. As Marlow opened the front doors to the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13436","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-island-times"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13436","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13436"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13436\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13439,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13436\/revisions\/13439"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13436"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13436"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13436"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}