‘Wednesdays Are Special To Me’

Ellie and her husband, Buzz, serve breakfast each week

Emmanuel Dining Room volunteer Ellie Corbett Hannum contributed the following essay:

Wednesdays are very special to me. It is the day I have the privilege of serving the guests of the Emmanuel Dining Room.

I am a newbie volunteer to the Ministry of Caring. Rita and Tom Sweeney have been doing it for 25 years, so they taught me the ropes. Ann Trzuskowski, another Wednesday volunteer, told me that about 20 years ago Mark Reardon asked her if she could drop off some doughnuts for him because he had a meeting and she said sure. She has been coming ever since. 

We have a lot of fun working together. My husband, Buzz, and I have been doing it for about two-and-a-half years every Wednesday. The other volunteers do every other Wednesday but have been doing it for a much longer time. The camaraderie is great and the caring for each other and all the people we serve is palpable. There is a commitment to make the start of our guests’ day the best it can be. Great care is taken to make the oatmeal, display and serve the doughnuts, juice and coffee in a manner that would appeal to each of us. I am in charge of the beverages, so I ask each guest if they would like some milk in their oatmeal, serve glasses of milk and ice water. 

When I first started, a few people mentioned to me that the milk and water weren’t cold enough. So I remedied that by making more trips to the refrigerator, so that the cartons don’t sit out too long, and by keeping a bucket of ice handy to replenish ice when needed in the water. A small effort, but something that really makes them happy. 

The company I work for, Veritext Legal Solutions, loved to hear stories about the people that come in and what a wonderful job the Ministry of Caring is doing for so many deserving people in our community. Veritext asked what they could do to help, so we participate in the Delaware Charity Challenge and have raised over $5,800 a year for the past two years which is directly donated to the Ministry.

Also, I was instructed I could only allow people one glass of milk. I reached out to my daughter-in-law, who is an executive at Wawa, and told her that it’s pretty hard to tell somebody they can’t have a second glass of milk. Wawa stepped up and gave us a donation so that we no longer have to say no.

You become very familiar with a number of people. The first few weeks I volunteered I had to turn away a few times to dry my eyes because it really broke my heart to observe the plight of many of our guests, but as time moved on I learned to focus on what I can do, not what I can’t. I can’t cure poverty, but I can deal with each individual who crosses my path one by one and treat them with the courtesy, dignity and love that I would hope people would treat me with if the roles were ever reversed. 

So Wednesday mornings are special — they’re fun, they’re fast, they’re touching and in a very small way they make me feel that I am doing SOMETHING to help. God bless my fellow volunteers and all involved with the MOC.

—Ellie Corbett Hannum