Evening at the Scott Mission

Our church has been organizing volunteer visits to the Scott Mission for a little while now. I've wanted to join earlier, but this was my first time.

Named after, Rev. J. MacPherson Scott, the Scott Mission was founded by Morris and Annie Zeldman in 1941 "to serve the needs of the poor and lost in the community..."

Located on the west side of Spadina Avenue, just north of College Street, they provide food, shelter and clothing to those in need.

I arrived 10-15 minutes before our scheduled meeting time of 6:00 p.m. No one else from our church was there yet. One of the gentlemen working at the Mission let me in and I found a place to sit and wait.

While there I noticed an middle-aged gentleman who was sitting by himself at the front so I introduced myself. His name was Joe and he was originally from Texas. I believe he had been in Toronto for 10 years or so. He said he came up because of our healthcare system. I don't know if he was being serious or not, but I suppose it's entirely possible.

I don't think he knew too much about our city yet because he asked me about other assistance programs. Unfortunately I didn't know much about that sort of thing. I suggested he ask the staff at the Mission about it.

After that one of the fellows working there had Bill Mak and I go to the kitchen to plate the food for dinner. I believe it was leftovers from lunch. They had things stored in a warmer there. There were trays of meat, breakfast sausages, hamburger patties, baby carrots and small potatoes. We plated 42 styrofoam plates.

At 6:30 p.m. we handed about half of them out.

After handing the dinners out I thought I'd try to go out and chat with some of the guys there. Steve and one other fellow from the Chinese service had arrived to join us by now.

The first guy I approached was sitting by himself by the window at the southeast side of the room. I thought he was native, but he was actually Chinese. He was a student who came here from China to study. I'm not exactly sure what he was studying. Maybe English and something else. I didn't pry too much. I didn't ask him how he ended up at the Mission because I didn't want to embarrass him or anything. We had a short chat before he left to go out for a smoke.

Not everyone I went up to wanted to talk. There were at least two guys who weren't interested.

The next fellow I chatted with was a middle aged gentleman of Egyptian decent. He was a really nice guy. Very friendly. He came in a bit late, but only wanted a small amount of food since he had already eaten.

He had a bit of an accent, so I couldn't always understand everything he said. I think he did a lot of different things for work throughout his life. Though, right now, I can't remember what he told me. He mentioned he married a lady from Canada, but after a few years they divorced. Life can take unexpected turns.

The last guy I spoke with was a Caucasian fellow who was just a year older than me. We both grew up in the GTA. Since we were pretty much the same age I think we could relate to a lot of things about life growing up in Toronto.

I have to admit, I'm finishing writing this almost a week later and can't remember a lot of details about the conversations I had.

Normally I like to try to find out some basic information about the guys I chat with. I suppose if we spoke long enough I might feel comfortable enough about bringing up the subject of why they were using the Mission's services. But I didn't get that far this time.

When possible I like to try to offer words of encouragement. I don't know if I did that this time. At the very least I hope a stranger showing some interest in how they're doing somehow lifted their spirits. Even if only a little. That would show some measure of success in our outing.