Yesterday, as part of our first Thanksgiving together, Chris and I volunteered at a local Catholic church (St. Al’s), adding our hands, arms, legs, and semi-sweaty brows to an already swarming, ginormous!, sea of those ready to smell thanksgiving dinner for three hours without eating it.

I’d like to say that I volunteer often, or that I live! to volunteer, or that I have served in this particular hunger ministry “ever since I can remember.” The truth is, I can’t remember the last time I volunteered. At least, not like this. Not this hands-on.

“The last time,” I’m pretty sure I was in college, in Oregon, and that was more than three years ago. I was indeed quite volunteery back in the day. “The day” mostly meaning “in high-school, where I was part of A.S.B. and leadership and then again in college, because again, leadership and events’ board geek was I.”

Yesterday was, in a word, awesome. Not because I felt “fulfilled” or “happy,” or “content with my place in the world” by serving beverages and keeping coffee hot and made and lemonade flowing like water. That was just an added, mostly unexpected perk.

It was awesome because we, and by “we” again I mean (”Chris and I” and also) “what must have been over seventy volunteers,” fed over two-hundred people yesterday. People who had no where to go to eat turkey, and ham, and potatoes, and stuffing. People who so very often have no place to go (in general, and) at all.

Yesterday they had as much homemade dinner as they could stomach. Seconds and thirds and fourths if they wanted. They walked out the door full to the brim with turkey and hot pie, and many walked out with “to go” boxes in hand.

Yesterday they had hot coffee, as much as they could drink. And they had lemonade. Over seven and a half gallons, to be (mostly) precise. And they had ice water, and hot tea in (mostly) endless amounts.

And while I know they would have had such had liquid “amenities” had Chris and I not signed up to man the beverage station, we were privileged to serve them.

And while I know that it surely isn’t enough–that one day of endless hot food and drink is never enough–it still felt like it mattered. The room was full of hearty conversation, and they all looked happy, and warm, and rather fond of lemonade.

Ultimately our job was such a small, seemingly unimportant part of a much larger whole. But we both walked out of that dining room feeling grateful. Feeling like we should have been the ones saying “thank you.”