At the Food Bank

November 25, 2009 at 7:56 PM 1 comment

I worked at the food bank today.

I arrived to almost bare shelves. The bank serves on average 26 families per day. Yesterday they served 78 so the volunteers didn’t have time to stock.

We had 8 volunteers — we usually have 3 or 4 — so we got right on it. Cases of apples arrived that we had to bag, as well as pears and onions. I spent about an hour breaking down huge bags of Romaine lettuce and “baby greens.”

We filled the shelves with the usual — canned beans, vegetables, fruit, chili, tuna and soup. We had a good supply of bread and milk and some butter, cottage cheese and grated “taco cheese” — rare treats. We even had some individual servings of cheesecake oh, and about 15 frozen turkeys!

Several people came through with donations. One woman brought toiletries — shampoo, conditioner, lotion — another rare treat.

My “shift” was over just as it was getting busy. We only have five shopping carts so people had to wait until one was available. If yesterday was any indication, they helped three times more families today than on an “average” day.

I love the people I work with there — it is a sad task — but the people who come through are so grateful. It’s a wonderful feeling knowing that the people I helped will have good food on the table tomorrow, even if they don’t have much of anything else.

I’ll say it again: I can’t wait until the resources in this country are more evenly distributed and the Pentagon might, just might, be the one who has to hold a bake sale.