General update?

Other than the bedbug fiasco, life here in Denver is pushing foward!

I love my job! Working at Metro CareRing is wonderful. The staff is small (including volunteer staff, 10 total) but the volunteers are plentiful and wonderfully dedicated. The staff are all committed to one another and to hunger relief. I was worried that in working at an agency that deals with so many working poor that some of my co workers could be jaded or negative about their work. On the contrary, everyone is active and passionate and committed. It's incredibly

rejuvenating. We are always all so busy so I am still getting to know everyone better. I look

forward to our staff retreat day (we are heading up the mountains!!!) when I will have a lot more face to face time with staff members that isn't focused on all the work to do. It still will be focused on work, but I get to spend time with my co workers, not just my clients :-D

A lot of what I am doing at work is working up front with the clients as they come in for services, but my more 'specialized' work is going to be helping with the ID project. A huge barrier for a lot of people is not having an ID or a birth certificate. They can be costly and difficult to come by. So many agencies require some kind of ID. It's something that I always took for granted. So I am currently training on taking appointments for out of state birth certificates. The process varies state to state, and some are far trickier than others. But a very useful skill to have, eh? I am also working on our referrals database. Since we offer limited services. we try to help people in the

direction of agencies that can help them in other areas. Keeping up with that information on file and keeping it organized is a pain. But it's now my job! I am trying to compile of a lot of referrals into one document ie creating a sheet that lists housing options just for women, or a sheet of all

the bilingual programs available. Then if they want more information on a few, we can do that too. I have had to mail information to two incarcerated people already, which is not something I expected. It's new and even though its a person i will likely never meet and who is very far from me, it's a strange thing to be asked for help in this way. I do try to do my best to give them the best information possible because I can't imagine being released from prison after 20+ years and then trying to figure out what to do now would be an easy task.

On some lighter notes! While I don't have photos of my house, I do have a few of my own room which I have tried to make as homey as possible, despite the fact that someone used to use it as an office:

I have plenty of space, that's for sure!! I just hope that there aren't any more yucky bugs in all of those spaces!!