Metro Weekly

Burgundy Crescent Volunteers

Helping hands from your local gay volunteer group

Let’s face it. It’s not easy getting out of bed early on a Saturday to help Burgundy Crescent Volunteers, a local gay volunteer group. And you don’t have to if you want to join the group during one of its weekday events. However, I did the unimaginable by making it to a recent Saturday morning session at Food & Friends, at 219 Riggs St. NE. It was actually pretty gratifying, a feeling I had once I was in the midst of packing food in brown bags for the many Washingtonians suffering from HIV/AIDS or other ailments. If that’s not motivating enough to get you out of bed early on a Saturday, you should know there’s free coffee and donuts for volunteers. And you’ll need coffee because everything is organized and you want to be able to keep up with everyone else. Even the BCV name tags have instructions: Write your name in green if you’re single, blue if you’re taken, and black if you’re afraid you might attract a stalker and rather not say. Once that was out of the way, we lined up in front of a table and formed a lunch-packing factory. Menus, potato salad, cake, bagels, and apples — it was simple: Everything went into the big brown bag. We then put on gloves, hairnets (you won’t have to if you bring a hat) and aprons, and seasoned raw fish. And that was it. It only took an hour and a half to make a difference. BCV hosts various events throughout the week. To help, contact jonathan@burgundycrescent.org.

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