Page 65 - Book about Friendship and Future.Stories of Volunteers.

Olga Paryshkova

KFC Lenta Energetikov
Novosibirsk

Dinner for the Veterans

For a few years already our restaurant has been traditionally
holding charity dinners for the veterans on the Victory Day, May
9. This year I participated in the arrangement of the dinner for the
first time and got deeply impressed with this event.
On the day we prepared the restaurant hall, bought some
flowers for the veterans and were impatiently looking forward
to meeting them. I welcomed our dear guests at the entrance.
They were only seven and I was astonished how glad they were
to meet me. The veterans started to embracing me, telling how
grateful they were to me for inviting them into the restaurant:
they thought it was me who had met them every year in that
restaurant. But this misunderstanding was not a big deal, since
I was already overwhelmed with emotions from meeting them.
When we entered the restaurant, all the guests stood up and
gave a round of applause. And at that moment I felt proud be-
cause not only did we manage to please the veterans on that day
but we also reminded our other guests about the V-Day. When
we were offering some tasty dishes to the veterans, they were
not finishing their courses and were packing the food with them.
It looked weird to me and I thought they did not enjoy the meals.
The person who accompanied the veterans explained to me that
they wanted to share the meals with their grandchildren who
were waiting for them at home, as if to demonstrate with a little
boast that they were still remembered and appreciated.
Like us, the veterans, were happy that the other guests were
meeting them with great applause, that the restaurant staff pre-
sented them with flowers and dinner, some of them started dis-
puting who would stand closer to me while we were making
a photo. After dinner all the guests made some pictures together
with the veterans and were telling their kids what a memorable
moment it was for them. I am looking forward to seeing the vet-
erans in full force in our restaurant next year!