do, and far too much time on her hands. She could only spend so much time in the park with Mousse. This might give some purpose to her days, and do someone else some good. She liked that idea.
“What I like to do with volunteers,” Louise said honestly, flipping one of her braids back over her shoulder, “is give them a good honest look at us first. No frills. The real thing. You can spend a few days with us, and see how you feel. If you think it's what you're looking for and what you want to do. And after that, if we both think it's a match, we train you for a week, two at the most, depending on which area appeals to you, and then we put you to work. Hard, hard work,” she warned, and meant it. “Nobody here messes around. The full-time staff works a twelvehour day most of the time, sometimes more if we have some kind of crisis, and we often do. Even the volunteers work their asses off while they're here.” She grinned. “How does that sound to you?”
“Terrific, actually.” Ophélie smiled back at her, suddenly hopeful. “It sounds like just what I need. I just hope I'm what you need.”
“We'll see.” Louise stood up and smiled broadly. “I'm not trying to scare you off, Ophélie. I just want to be honest. I don't want you to get the impression that it's easier than it is. We have a lot of fun here, but some of what we do is just plain awful, dirty, depressing, grueling, dangerous, exhausting. You may go home feeling great some days, or cry yourself to sleep other days. We see just about everything there is to see on the streets. And I don't know if you'd be interested, but we have an outreach program too.”
“What do they do?” Ophélie was intrigued.
“They drive around in two vans that were donated to us, and they look for people on the streets, people who are too sick, mentally or physically, in body and spirit, to come to us. So we go to them. We take them food, clothing, medical supplies, if they're too sick, we try and get them into a hospital, or a program, or a shelter. There are a lot of people out there who are too disoriented to make it here. No matter how accessible we try to make ourselves, there are some people out there who are too scared, or broken, or disenfranchised to reach out. We have at least one outreach van on the street every night to find them. Two vans if we can staff them. They go to the clients who need us most of all. The ones who can get to us here are at least thinking a little more clearly and on their feet. Some of the people out there are actually doing okay, but they need help and may be too scared to try and get it. They don't trust us, even though they may have heard about us. Sometimes all we do on the streets at night is sit and talk to them. And personally, I always try to get the runaways off the streets. But a lot of what they're running away from is worse than what they run into on the streets. There's some pretty ugly stuff that goes on in this world. We see most of it, or the results of it, every day, particularly at night. The days are a little more tame. But that's why we go out there at night, that's when they need us most.”
“It sounds like fairly dangerous work,” Ophélie said sensibly. She didn't think she should risk that because of Pip. Besides, she wanted to be home at night with her.
“It is dangerous. We go out around seven or eight o'clock at night, and we stay out late, doing whatever needs to be done. They've had a few close calls. But so far, none of our outreach staff have gotten hurt. They're pretty aware of what goes on on the streets.”
“Are they armed?” Ophélie asked, impressed. These were brave people, doing miraculous work.
Louise laughed and shook her head. “Only with their heads and hearts. You have to want to be out there. Don't ask me why or how, but personally, deep in your heart and gut, it has to be worth the risk. You don't need to worry about that. There's plenty you can do for us here at the