Sunday, January 16, 2011

Homeless Shelter Manicures

I've been volunteering all week at a homeless shelter we hold at my school every January. Last night - spa night. I instantly signed up to give manicures to all the men and women at shelter. We also had a couple foot baths, and plenty of helpers. I set up on my little red table and waited :D.




Left: My "work station" with all my tools and such
Right: My polishes, lotions, etc
(One of the volunteers even had a Zoya to offer to the polish stash!)


We had loads of ladies come by to get their hands and feet done that night. Plenty of men indulged in the foot baths, but none were brave enough for a manicure. Well, except one of the volunteers who was dying for me to do something about his cuticles lol. I started out with just one girl helping me at the manicure table, and we were only supposed to do hands. Once we got going lots of other female volunteers were very interested in helping and soon we had 4 or 5 helpers. After some people started asking about pedicures, we couldn't turn them away. We all know messing with the feet of someone you don't know, whose feet might not even be clean, can be...uncomfortable. Some of the guests at the shelter really needed help though. One woman with arthritis couldn't grip clippers enough to trim her toenails, so her feet hadn't seen pampering in who knows how long. Her toes actually caused her great pain. How could we say no to that? I had expected some resistance from the other volunteers, but one sweet girl Katie didn't even hesitate to help her. Here she is giving another woman a pretty manicure :D.We had just the right amount of people sign up to where I had enough time to get a little funky with the manicures and do some nail art :D. This woman was so excited to get her nails done! Katie did her base color, moved her to the foot spa to dry, and I came over with the colors she had picked out. It was red with blue and gold lines :D. She liked them so much I did her toes the same way!

Doing this was a great experience. It opened my eyes in many ways. More people than I ever expected wanted to help, and wanted to help to the fullest extent. I swear every person that walked up to me said thank you. They all appreciated it so much! And it really made me thankful for what I do have, even something that sounds as simple or as common to you and I as healthy feet.

12 comments:

  1. Megan that was such a great thing you did...I'm sure that they will remember as wonderful treat!

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  2. What an amazing thing you did! If only we had people this nice everywhere!

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  3. that's so amazing, i saw this post and i was like 'awwwww'. hahaha you got yourself a new follower!

    xo

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  4. HAD to follow! People don't seem to understand that the simplest things we all do, lots of ppl take for granted! Look at the woman who couldn't do her toes due to arthritis!(imagine if YOU couldn't do that...) You guys helped probably more than you'll ever know! keep it up!!

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  5. That is so cool. This inspires me. I need to look into doing something like this 2. Great going.

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  6. So excited to see all these comments guys! Thanks so much! It was really a lot of fun and everyone really appreciated getting their nails done, a little lotion, all that. I was only supposed to stay till 10pm at lights out, but they kept coming so I kept painting until 1am! I really didn't mind. I'm sure I won't get the chance to do this again for a long time. Maybe next year at the same shelter!

    @Rose, definitely! This experience helped me to appreciate the little things, like having healthy feet and being able to simply clip my own toenails. Some people had awfully painful looking feet. I wanted to just jump on it and fix them, but I couldn't really tell some of the guys "your feet look awful, let me fix that".

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  7. I think you are a wonderful person Megan!

    Btw, I have never had a manicure or pedicure done for me, maybe finally this year :)

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  8. I know I never had one done until recently. It was just a regular manicure on natural nails, actually at my car dealership! Lol it's like a resort in there. It was free so I thought I'd try it. Peeled the next day...:-/.

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  9. Aww thanks! I'm really moved by all of the comments I've recieved!

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  10. This is so wonderful!

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  11. Thanks! It was really great. Glad to see another nail blogger here. Are you following? I'll check out your blog :D.

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