Here is a report from the good souls who run the Oxford Catholic Volunteer Movement -
On Sunday we held our second soup kitchen with four helpers. We had a two-hour slot at the community centre instead of our regular four-hour slot. Thanks to invaluable advice from CVM supporters, one of whom is Swiss student and knows the centre of Oxford better than the rest of us, it was much more successful this time.
We decided not to attempt to run a cafe but went out with small parcels of tobacco, sausage and bacon butties, chicken and bacon soup and fruit. We only saw five homeless people but four of them accepted as much food as they could eat and stuffed into their pockets. The first person we asked didn't; I think this was because I forgot to mention the tobacco first. Once we began by offering them tobacco, they thawed out and became much more receptive. They accepted quite a few copies of our flyers showing the dates, times and location of the soup kitchens for the next five months and figuring tobacco prominently near the top, and said they would spread the word. We enjoyed chatting to them..
It is still a small start, but at least we felt we'd achieved something this time. Next time we will be back to our four-hour slot, which means we can give them a proper sit-down meal and hand out clothes, books, etc (of which we've got loads).
I think key things were that when they hesitated we told them it was all home-made, nothing out of a tin, all fresh. Also the mention of sausage of bacon seemed to have a magical effect.
