Feeding the Hungry

The community service project ended up being a lot more work than I thought! We had about 40 people working together. We had to take flattened boxes and tape them so they stand up. Then we put labels on them that described what was inside. Then we put it down an assembly line and put in things like cereal, peanut butter, evaporated milk, rice, tomatoes, peaches, etc. At the end we taped up the top of the box and moved it to storage. It doesn't sound like that much, but it was exhausting! In addition to the obvious job of filling the boxes, we also had people that were unwrapping packages of food and breaking down empty cardboard boxes and moving boxes to keep a constant supply for the assembly line. I started off sticking labels on boxes, then changed to the job of moving boxes to the front of the line. After a while I moved to breaking down boxes and opening up boxes and finally I ended up filling the boxes with cans of tomatoes. After about an hour, I noticed that the tips of my fingers were swollen with blood. They were really sore just from constantly picking up and moving boxes and ripping open plastic and cardboard. And when I moved to the tomatoes, I discovered that cans are very dirty. My hands were covered in dirt. And we had a very brisk pace going so there was no time to rest at all. Our group apparently is very competitive because we were constantly pushing each other to go faster and get more done. It was exhausting. Every time I put the cans of tomatoes in the box and my shoulders were sore and my hands were dirty and I was tired, I thought "This is one more family that won't go hungry". I couldn't believe that there were so many families that need food. By the end of the morning, we had made up 1078 boxes. That is a lot of boxes. It felt really good that we did so much in just a couple of hours. I just cannot imagine doing that for more than a couple of hours. There was another group there at the Food Bank from Americorps. We asked them what Americorps is and they explained that it's like the Peace Corps, only national instead of international. Their job is literally volunteering. They live together and travel around the city of Denver doing community service. I don't think I could handle that. It's exhausting. And kind of depressing. But it makes me really appreciate that there are people like them that are willing to do that. How many fewer boxes would be given out to hungry families if there weren't people like them volunteering?

I am working at the desk tonight. It's my first shift! I think I will start reading my biology textbook to get ready for class to start. And then after my shift I am going to church to see what their bell choir is like. They invited me to come to their first rehearsal of the year tonight. I'm nervous and excited at the same time. I'm nervous because I feel like if I go once then I'm sort of obligated. And I might not like it. But at the same time, I may meet some really great people and I will get to do something I love and really miss from back home in Phoenix. So we'll see how it goes. I'm also thinking about joining our choir. But that seems like a lot. Besides my four classes, I would have two jobs (working at Nagel desk and NATS Physics) and bells, and choir. Not to mention homework and having time to hang out with my friends. I don't know if that's going to be too much. I guess I will have to feel it out the first few weeks and see how it goes. I just need to leave my options open.