'Our boat is nowhere near full,' German volunteers tell refugees

With some 10,000 migrants pouring into Munich, Germany, most every day, there are not enough beds for everyone yet.

So after their exhausting flight from homelands laid waste by bombs and drenched in blood, many arrivals have just pulled up a piece of floor and slept right in the train station.

Police in Munich announced on Sunday that the city had hit its capacity to help after 12,200 migrants arrived Saturday. Germany expects up to 800,000 applications for asylum this year, mainly from Syrian refugees.

Officials from German states have groaned to Chancellor Angela Merkel -- who generously decided to open the borders over a week ago and let so many destitute in -- that they don't know how to take care of them all, that the proverbial boat is already full.

Robust volunteerism

But thousands of German citizens backing hundreds of private charities to help asylum seekers across the country are trying to pick up the slack and are posting their work online. Some of them have been doing this for years. Others have been popping up to greet recent approaching waves of humanity. 

An initiative in the rural community of Tamm in the southwest sums up the civic attitude with the motto: "Our boat is nowhere near full."

Settle in and integrate, helpful volunteers tell asylum seekers, as they connect them with food, clothes, apartments, German lessons and new acquaintances. And with cookouts and parties to share music, cultural traditions and cuisine.

Here are just a few examples of the aid and the fun German helpers are sharing with asylum seekers from the Alps to the North Sea.

Shelter

German authorities have built new refugee housing, including temporary buildings made of modules that resemble shipping containers. And they've set up dividers to form living spaces in sprawling convention centers.

On private message boards, German volunteers ask their friends to donate space in private residences for refugee families to live.

And then there's the Grand Hotel Cosmopolis in Augsburg, the Cirque du Soleil of asylum homes. There, refugees live interspersed with artists, and hotel guests, whose fees help support the migrants. In their free time, they make art, practice yoga or dance together.

Education

A mantra migrants are hearing again and again from authorities, including directly from Chancellor Merkel is -- please learn German. Many organizations are offering courses for free.

The Welcome Initiative in Bremen pairs native speakers of German with adult asylum seekers eager to learn from them.